If it is the best, Willis, it is also the worst." "It has also produced great men," continued Willis; "there are Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Captain Cook, to whom you are indebted for a new world." "No thanks to them for that," said Jack; "if they had not discovered a new world we should have been in an old one." "That does not follow," remarked Ernest; "the new world would have existed even if it had not been discovered, and you might have found your way there all the same." "Not very likely," replied Jack, "unless one of the stars you intend to discover had shown us the way; otherwise it would only have existed in conjecture; and as nobody under such circumstances would have dreamt of settling in it, they would not have been shipwrecked during the voyage." "Very true," remarked Fritz; "if we had not been here we should, very probably, have been somewhere else, and perhaps in a much worse plight.

Let me ask if there is any one here who regrets his present position ?" Willis was about to reply to this question, but Sophia observing that there was something wrong with the handkerchief that he wore round his neck, hastened towards him to put it to rights, and he was silent.
The hour had now arrived when the families separated for the night.
Mary was preparing as usual to recite the evening prayer, but before doing so she whispered a few words in her mother's ear.
"Yes, my child;" and, turning to Frank, she added, "Since you are determined to adopt the ministry as a profession, it is but right that we should for the future entrust ourselves to your prayers." The two families were now located in their respective eyries; and Jack, whilst escorting the Wolstons to the foot of their tree, said to Sophia, "I thought the chimpanzee had been playing some prank." "So he has.

Has nobody told you of it ?" "No, not a soul." "Then I will be as discreet as my neighbors; good night, Master Jack.".