met cordially, and after a few words of greeting they
proceeded to walk the deck together like old acquaintances.

Though the night was fresh and sharp there was a bright moon, and they
both felt reluctant to go below, where a vast crowd of passengers was
assembled. The brisk exercise, the invigorating air, and a certain
congeniality that each discovered in the other, soon established between
them one of those confidences which are only possible in early life.

Nor do I know anything better in youth than the frank readiness with
which such friendships are made. It is with no spirit of calculation--it
is with no counting of the cost, that we sign these contracts. We feel
drawn into companionship, half by some void within ourselves, half by
some quality that seems to supply that void. The tones of our own voice
in our own ears assure us that we have found sympathy; for we feel
that we are speaking in a way we could not speak to cold or uncongenial
listeners.

When Jack Bramleigh had told that he was going to take command of a
small gunboat in the Mediterranean, he could not help going further, and
telling with what a heavy heart he was going to assume his command.
"We sailors have a hard lot of it," said he; "we come home after a
cruise--all is new, brilliant, and attractive to us. Our hearts are not
steeled, as are landsmen's, by daily habit. We are intoxicated by what
calmer heads scarcely feel excited. We fall in love, and then, some fine
day, comes an Admiralty despatch ordering us to hunt slavers off Lagos,
or fish for a lost cable in Behring's Straits."

"Never mind," said the other; "so long as there 's a goal to reach, so
long as there's a prize to win, all can be borne. It's only when life
is a shoreless ocean--when, seek where you will, no land will come in
sight--when, in fact, existence offers nothing to speculate on--then,
indeed, the world is a dreary blank."

"I don't suppose any fellow's lot is as bad as that."

"Not perhaps completely, thoroughly so; but that a man's fate can
approach such a condition--that a man can cling to so small a hope that
he is obliged to own to himself that it is next to no hope at all,--that
there could be, and is, such a lot in existence, I who speak to you now
am able unfortunately to vouch for."

"I am sorry to hear it," said Jack, feelingly; "and I am sorry, besides,
to have obtruded my own small griefs before one who has such a heavy
affliction."

"Remember," said