ing them to Virginia, told her to take them to my mother, who
was upstairs in her room.

"To tell you the truth, Jack, this two hundred pounds, which I earned so
easily, has just come in the right time, and with it and my pilotage I
shall now be able to do what I have long wished."

"And what's that?" inquired I. "Something for Bessy, I suppose."

"Exactly, Tom, it is something for Bessy; that is, it will be by-and-by.
I've a good matter of money, which I've laid by year after year, and
worked hard for it, too, and I never have known what to do with it. I
can't understand the Funds and those sort of things, so I have kept some
here and some there. Now, you know the grass land at the back of the
cottage: it forms part of a tidy little farm, which is rented for
seventy pounds a year, by a good man, and it has been for sale these
three years; but I never could manage the price till now. When we go
back to Deal, I shall try if I can buy that farm; for, you see, money
may slip through a man's fingers in many ways, but land can't run away;
and, as you say, it will be Bessy's one of these days--and more, too, if
I can scrape it up."

"You are right, Bramble," said Peter Anderson, "and I am glad to hear
that you can afford to buy the land."

"Why, there's money to be picked up by pilotage if you work hard, and
aren't afraid of heavy ships," replied Bramble.

"Well, I never had a piece of land, and never shall have, I suppose,"
said my father. "I wonder how a man must feel who can stand on a piece
of ground and say, 'This is my own!'"

"Who knows, father? it's not impossible but you may."

"Impossible! No, nothing's impossible, as they say on board of a
man-of-war. It's not impossible to get an apology out of a midshipman,
but it's the next thing to it."

"Why do they say that, father?"

"Because midshipmen are so saucy--why, I don't know. They haven't no
rank as officers, nor so much pay as a petty officer, and yet they give
themselves more airs than a lieutenant."

"I'll tell you why," replied Anderson. "A lieutenant takes care what he
is about. He is an officer, and has something to lose; but a midshipman
has nothing to lose, and therefore he cares about nothing. You can't
break a midshipman, as the saying is, unless you break his neck. And
they have necks which aren't easily broken, that's sartain."

"They do seem to me to have more lives than a cat," observed my father,
who, after a pause, continued: "Well, I