There's malice, squire, in every line of it." "I'm afraid it's a bad letter," the squire assented gravely.
"It's a natural letter," Mr.Wilks said savagely.

"It is written in a hurry, and he's had no time to pick and choose his words, and round off his sentences, as he generally does in his letters to you.

He was so full of malicious exultation that he did not think how much he was showing his feeling, as he wrote." "It's a bad letter and a nasty letter," the squire assented; "but let that pass, now.

The first question is--How are we to tell Jim's mother?
Do you think it will be a relief to her, or otherwise ?" "It will be a blow to know that the lugger has been captured," Mr.
Wilks said--"a severe blow, no doubt, for her escape is what we have been building our hopes upon.

It will be a heavy blow, too, for her to know that James is a seaman before the mast; that it will be years before she will see him again, and that all her plans for his future are upset.