m if they
have a vacancy for you. Jack Clew, who was once in the navy, was a
messmate of mine on board the old `Thunderer' when I lost my leg at
`Navarin'," (so the lieutenant always pronounced Navarino, the action
fought by the British fleet under Sir Edward Codrington with that of the
Turks and Egyptians). "Jack used to profess a willingness to serve me,
but, Ned, we must not trust too much to old friends. Times alter, and
he may find he has applicants nearer at hand whose relatives have longer
purses than I have. Don't fear, however, my boy, something may turn up,
as it always does, if we seek diligently to get it and wait with
patience."

Ned did not then press the matter further; his spirits were buoyant, and
although his uncle's remarks were not calculated to raise them, he was
not disheartened.

Edward Garth, the lieutenant's nephew, was the son of a younger sister,
who had married a friend and messmate, a lieutenant in the same noble
service in which he had spent his best days. They had served together
in several ships up to the time that Garth was stricken down with fever
up an African river, their ship then forming one of the blockading
squadron on the west coast, when he committed his infant boy to his
brother-in-law's care. "I am sure that you will look after him for our
poor Fanny's sake; but she is delicate, and I know not what effect my
death will have on her. At all events, he will be fatherless, and she,
poor girl, will find it a hard matter to manage a spirited lad."

"Do not let that thought trouble you, Ned," answered Lieutenant Pack;
"Fanny's child shall ever be as if he were my own son. I promised to
keep house with Sally, and Fanny shall come and live with us. A better
soul than Sally does not exist, though I, who am her brother, say so."

Soon after he had seen his brother-in-law laid in the grave, Lieutenant
Pack came home to find that his sister Fanny had followed her husband to
the other world, and that Sally had already taken charge of their young
nephew.

From that day forward she truly became a mother to the orphan, and as
the lieutenant proved a kind, though not over indulgent father, Ned
never felt the loss of his parents, and grew up all that his uncle and
aunt could desire, rewarding them for their watchful care and judicious
management of him. The lieutenant's means would not allow him to bestow
an expensive education on his nephew, but he was enabled to send him to
a n