this cliff, I have
learned to pity sailors."

"Perhaps, my child, you pity us when we are the most happy. Nine seamen
in ten prefer a respectable gale to a flat calm. There are moments when
the ocean is terrific; but, on the whole, it is capricious, rather than
malignant. The night that is before us promises to be just such a one as
Sir Gervaise Oakes delights in. He is never happier than when he hears a
gale howling through the cordage of his ship."

"I have heard him spoken of as a very daring and self-relying commander.
But _you_ cannot entertain such feelings, Admiral Bluewater; for to me
you seem better fitted for a fireside, well filled with friends and
relatives, than for the conflicts and hardships of the sea."

Mildred had no difficulty now in forcing a smile, for the sweet one she
bestowed on the veteran almost tempted him to rise and fold her in his
arms, as a parent would wrap a beloved daughter to his heart.
Discretion, however, prevented a betrayal of feelings that might have
been misinterpreted, and he answered in his original vein.

"I fear I am a wolf in sheep's clothing," he said; "while Oakes admits
the happiness he feels in seeing his ship ploughing through a raging
sea, in a dark night, he maintains that my rapture is sought in a
hurricane. I do not plead guilty to the accusation, but I will allow
there is a sort of fierce delight in participating, as it might be, in a
wild strife of the elements. To me, my very nature seems changed at such
moments, and I forget all that is mild and gentle. That comes of having
lived so much estranged from your sex, my dear; desolate bachelor, as I
am."

"Do you think sailors ought to marry?" asked Mildred, with a steadiness
that surprised herself; for, while she put the question, consciousness
brought the blood to her temples.

"I should be sorry to condemn a whole profession, and that one I so well
love, to the hopeless misery of single life. There are miseries peculiar
to the wedded lives of both soldiers and sailors; but are there not
miseries peculiar to those who never separate? I have heard seamen
say--men, too, who loved their wives and families--that they believed
the extreme pleasure of meetings after long separations, the delights of
hope, and the zest of excited feelings, have rendered their years of
active service more replete with agreeable sensations, than the stagnant
periods of peace. Never having been married myself, I can only speak on
repo