THE ORKNEY ISLANDS.

CHAPTER I.

LETTER FROM SINGAPORE.

On one occasion, when Mrs. Morelle went down to New York with Grimkie and her two children Florence and John, while her husband was in the East Indies, she heard that a letter had arrived from him that very day, and that it had just been sent to the post-office in order to be conveyed to her at her house up the North River. The letter, she was told, came from Singapore.

Singapore is a large English port situated just about half way round the world from America, on the way to the East Indies. It is a sort of center and rendezvous for all ships navigating those seas, and letters go and come to and from

it in all directions.

It is often visited, moreover, by ships of war, cruising in those seas.