tation; and Miss Martha, with a good deal
of tact, took care to make the offer, holding the Little Lady in her
arms, and when she smiled and held out her hands to my mother, very
speedily gained the victory. My father was too glad to leave his wife
in such safe keeping, and so the matter was soon arranged.

My father was appointed to a sloop of war, which he at once joined, and
in which he saw a good deal of hard service.

Several captains applied for Mr Schank, who was looked upon as such an
excellent First-Lieutenant, that even his best friends declared that it
would be a pity to have him promoted. The Admiralty, however, sent him
to look after a young lord in delicate health and indolent disposition,
who required a cruise to improve the first, and a man who would do all
his work for him, in order that he might indulge in the second.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The Little Lady grew apace, and flourished under the careful nursing of
my mother and the Misses Schank. They gave her the name of Emily, in
compliment to an elder sister whom I have not before mentioned--a great
invalid, who never left her room. I had, indeed, not seen her, for she
was so nervous that it was feared I might agitate her. The Little Lady
was, however, once taken in to her, and she was so pleased that she
insisted on seeing her every day. She was, I afterwards learned, not
only an invalid, but occasionally affected in her mind, from some great
grief which had occurred to her in her youth.

Time rolled on. I was somewhat spoiled, I think, by the kind ladies,
who treated me completely as if I had been in their own position in
life, and took great pains to teach me all I was then capable of
learning.

At length my father came back to Whithyford. He could not remain long,
for he had been appointed to another ship. He told my mother that he
had been so unhappy without her that he had got leave to take her and me
with him, as I was now big enough to go to sea. My mother was too
sensible a woman not to know that she must some day of necessity part
from the Little Lady, and though it was like wrenching her very
heartstrings, she, without hesitation, agreed to accompany her husband
and take me with her. Our kind friends were, I know, very sorry to part
with us. The old lady folded her arms round me, and kissed me on both
cheeks, and on my forehead, and blessed me, and told me she hoped I
should be as brave and good a man as her son, and also as