He had advised him to come out to Barbados; and the advice, which at another season William Bishop might have scorned, reached him at a moment when his wildness was beginning to bear such fruit that a change of climate was desirable.

William came, and was admitted by his generous brother to a partnership in the prosperous plantation.

Some six years later, when Arabella was fifteen, her father died, leaving her in her uncle's guardianship.

It was perhaps his one mistake.

But the goodness of his own nature coloured his views of other men; moreover, himself, he had conducted the education of his daughter, giving her an independence of character upon which perhaps he counted unduly.