pose
you'll have no objection to stay, Master D'Arcy?" he added, turning to
me.

I had none, of course, and so it was arranged. While Larry was gone,
the good lady took me into the sitting-room, and begging me to make
myself at home, was very inquisitive to know all about me. I had no
reason for not gratifying her, so I told her how my mother and then my
father had died and left me an orphan, and how I had come all the way
from Kerry to Portsmouth, and how I belonged to a cutter which I had not
yet seen, and how I intended one day to become a Nelson or a
Collingwood. Of my resolution the kind lady much approved.

"Ah, my good, dear man, if he had lived, would have become a captain
also; but he went to sea and died, and I never from that day to this
heard any more of him," said she, wiping the corner of her eye with her
apron, more from old habit than because there were any tears to dry up,
for she certainly was not crying. "Those things on the mantel-piece
there were some he brought me home years and years ago, when he was a
gay young sailor; and I've kept them ever since, for his sake, though
I've been hard pushed at times to find bread to put into my mouth, young
gentleman."

The things she spoke of were such as are to be found in the
sitting-rooms of most sailors' wives. There were elephants' teeth, with
figures of men and women carved on them, very cleverly copied from very
coarse prints; and there were shells of many shapes, and lumps of
corals, and bits of seaweed, with the small model of a ship, very much
battered, and her yards scandalised, as if to mourn for her builder's
loss. She was placed on a stand covered with small shells, and at
either end were bunches of shell flowers, doubtlessly very tasteful
according to the widow's idea. The room was hung round with coloured
prints, which even then I did not think very well executed. One was a
sailor returning from a voyage, with bags of gold at his back and
sticking out of his pockets. I wondered whether I should come back in
that way; but as I did not know the value of money, there was nothing
very exciting in it to me. There were two under which was written "The
lover's meeting." In both cases the lady was dressed extravagantly
fine, with a bonnet and very broad ribbons; and the lover had on the
widest trousers I ever saw. Another represented a lady watching for her
lover, whose ship was seen in the distance; and one more I remember was
a seaman