uth, half hiding a double row of even
teeth, with the merest moonshine of a mustache darkening the short upper
lip, and then those large, fearless hazel eyes, sparkling with health
and fun, shaded by a mass of chestnut curls, which cluster about his
clear open forehead! Ay, there he stands, "a king and a kingdom" for the
girl who wins him!

"Well, Harry, give us your fist, my boy! How do you get on aboard your
prize? Not so roomy as the old frigate, eh? And a little more work than
when you were playing flag-lieutenant, eh? Well, glad to see you, but
can't stop to talk. So jump down below there in the wardroom; the mess
are just through dinner, and yours won't be ready for an hour yet. Come,
bear a hand, or I'll let these awnings fall on your new gold epaulet."

The new-comer tripped as lightly down the ladder to the gun-deck
as Mr. Mouse, and making another dive down to the berth-deck,
exchanging a rapid volley of pleasantry with the midshipmen in
the steerage, he opened the wardroom door and entered. There, in
a large open space, transversely dividing the stern of the ship,
with rows of latticed-doored staterooms on either side, lighted by
open skylights from above, with a barrel of a wind-sail coming
down between the sashes, and every thing, from beams to bulkheads,
painted a glistening white, and the deck so clean that you might
have rubbed your handkerchief on it without leaving a stain on
the cambric, around a large extension mahogany table stretching
from side to side, the cloth removed, decanters and wine-glasses
here and there, and water-monkeys in flannel jackets hanging like
criminals from a gallows from the beams above, sat the wardroom
mess of the frigate.

"By all that's handsome, here's Darcantel! Why, Harry, we are delighted
to see you!" exclaimed half a dozen voices; "come, sit down here and
take a glass of wine with us!"

As the handsome young fellow entered the wardroom, all faces lighted up
as they saw him. The old sailing-master, who seldom indulged in more
than a scowl since he lost his right ear by the stroke of a cutlass in
capturing the tender to the "Plantagenet" seventy-four off the Hills of
Navesink; the rigid old major of marines, who pipe-clayed his very
knuckles, and wore a stiff sheet-iron padding to his stock to encourage
discipline in the guard; the dear, kind old surgeon, who swallowed
calomel pills by the pint, out of pure principle, and who lopped off
limbs and felt yellow fever