me as that of a seafaring man? You've relations in both
callings, and ought to be able to answer."

"But uncle, I mean human nature."

"So do I, girl; the human nature of a seaman, and the human nature of
one of these fellows of the 55th, not even excepting your own father.
Here have they had a shooting-match--target-firing I should
call it--this day, and what a different thing has it been from a
target-firing afloat! There we should have sprung our broadside, sported
with round shot, at an object half a mile off, at the very nearest; and
the potatoes, if there happened to be any on board, as very likely would
not have been the case, would have been left in the cook's coppers.
It may be an honorable calling, that of a soldier, Mabel; but an
experienced hand sees many follies and weaknesses in one of these forts.
As for that bit of a lake, you know my opinion of it already, and I wish
to disparage nothing. No real seafarer disparages anything; but, d---me,
if I regard this here Ontario, as they call it, as more than so much
water in a ship's scuttle-butt. Now, look you here, Mabel, if you wish
to understand the difference between the ocean and a lake, I can make
you comprehend it with a single look: this is what one may call a calm,
seeing that there is no wind; though, to own the truth, I do not think
the calms are as calm as them we get outside--"

"Uncle, there is not a breath of air. I do not think it possible for the
leaves to be more immovably still than those of the entire forest are at
this very moment."

"Leaves! what are leaves, child? there are no leaves at sea. If you wish
to know whether it is a dead calm or not, try a mould candle,--your dips
flaring too much,--and then you may be certain whether there is or is
not any wind. If you were in a latitude where the air was so still that
you found a difficulty in stirring it to draw it in in breathing, you
might fancy it a calm. People are often on a short allowance of air in
the calm latitudes. Here, again, look at that water! It is like milk in
a pan, with no more motion now than there is in a full hogshead before
the bung is started. On the ocean the water is never still, let the air
be as quiet as it may."

"The water of the ocean never still, Uncle Cap? not even in a calm?"

"Bless your heart, no, child! The ocean breathes like a living being,
and its bosom is always heaving, as the poetizers call it, though there
be no more air than is to be found in