e prayers of the
innocent. Farewell!"

And under the impulse of the moment, Mark bent forward and pressed
his lips fervently upon her pure forehead; then, springing away,
left her bewildered and in tears.

Mark hurried on towards the nearest landing place on the river, some
three miles distant, which he reached just as a steamboat was
passing. Waving his handkerchief, as a signal, the boat rounded to,
and touching at the rude pier, took him on board. He arrived in New
York that evening, and on the next morning started for Washington to
see after his application for a midshipman's appointment in the
navy. It was on this occasion that the young man became aware of the
secret influence of his father against the application which had
been made. His mind, already feverishly excited, lost its balance
under this new disturbing cause.

"He will repent of this!" said he, bitterly, as he left the room of
the Secretary of the Navy, "and repent it until the day of his
death. Make a fixture of me in a counting room! Shut me up in a
lawyer's office! Lock me down in a medicine chest! Mark Clifford
never will submit! If I cannot enter the service in one way I will
in another."

Without pausing to weigh the consequences of his act, Mark, in a
spirit of revenge towards his father, went, while the fever was on
him, to the Navy Yard, and there entered the United States service
as a common sailor, under the name of Edward James. On the day
following, the ship on board of which he had enlisted was gliding
down the Potomac, and, in a week after, left Hampton Roads and went
to sea.

From Norfolk, Mr. Clifford received a brief note written by his son,
upbraiding him for having defeated the application to the
department, and avowing the fact that he had gone to sea in the
government service, as a common sailor.

CHAPTER II.

IT was impossible for such passionate interviews, brief though they
were, to take place without leaving on the heart of a simple minded
girl like Jenny Lawson, a deep impression. New impulses were given
to her feelings, and a new direction to her thoughts. Nature told
her that Mark Clifford loved her; and nothing but his cold disavowal
of the fact could possibly have affected this belief. He had met
her, it was true, only three or four times; but their interviews
during these meetings had been of a character to leave no ordinary
effect behind. So long as her eyes, dimmed by overflowing tears,
could follow M