me as being my mother's birth-place, and on account of my residence on it, being among the most fascinating recollections of my childhood.
As I was preparing to leave the steamer, I was surprised by the steward bringing me a beautiful basket filled with different kinds of fruit. A card which accompanied it told me that it was from Captain F., who had been obliged to stop at St. Lucia for repairs, having broken a mast. On going on shore, I sent the captain a note, requesting him to call on me at the residence of my cousin, the old family homestead. This he did, and I introduced him to my relatives. His visit was a short one, however, as his vessel was almost ready for sea, and so he said good by again, and for the last time. I have never seen him since.
My Childhood's Home.
It was not without a certain feeling of sadness and strangeness that I found myself once more domiciled in the old-fashioned stone house where I had lived with my father and mother, and brothers, and sisters, when a little girl. The house and its surroundings were much the same as they were many years before, and yet there was something oddly unfamiliar about them, and it took me some time to reconcile my recollections with the realities. The stone house, built in the English fashion, the marble floor, the ancient furniture of Spanish make, the stone water-pool and stone filter, and the banana and prune bushes which grew at my mother's window, were, however, all as they had been, and as if I had left them but yesterday.
In gazing on these familiar objects, I was forced, in spite of myself, to think of the many years that had passed since I had last seen them, and of the many things that had happened. The happy family that had gathered under this roof had been scattered, and most of its members were dead ; while I, the darling of my father and of my gentle mother, what a strange career I had gone through stranger far than that of many a heroine of romance whose adventures had fascinated my girlish fancy! I was yet, too, a young woman, and what strange things might not the future have in store for me? It was enough, however, just then to think of the past and of the present, without perplexing myself with speculations as to the future; and I gave myself up to such enjoyment as a visit of
