Then the uncle and the niece walked into the garden, and there talked of Major Bonnet.
Little did Kate know upon this subject, and nothing could her uncle tell her; but in many and tender words she was assured that this was her home as long as she chose to live in it, and that it was the most fortunate thing in the world that Dame Charter had come with her and could stay with her.

Had this not been so, where could he have found such a guardian angel, such a chaperon, for this tender niece?
As for the young man, it was such rare good luck that he had been able to accompany the two ladies and give them his protection.

He was just the person, Mr.
Delaplaine believed, who would be invaluable to him either on the plantation or in his counting-house.

In any case, here was their home; and here, too, was the home of his brother-in-law, Bonnet, whenever he chose to give up his strange fancy for the sea.

It was not now to be thought of that Kate or her father, or either one of them, should go back to Barbadoes to live with the impossible Madam Bonnet.
If her father's vessel were in the harbour and he were here with them, or even if she had had good tidings from him, Kate Bonnet would have been a very happy girl, for her present abode was vastly different from any home she had ever known.