. There he was, a tall, straight, active, well-made, well-grown and
decidedly handsome lad of seventeen, who had doubled the Cape of Good
Hope, seen foreign parts, and had a real India handkerchief hanging out
of each pocket of a blue round-about of superfine cloth, besides one
around his half-open well-formed throat, that was carelessly tied in a
true sailor knot! The questions he had to answer, and _did_ answer,
about whales, Chinese feet, and "mountain waves!" Although Bristol lies
on a navigable river, up and down which frigates had actually been seen
to pass in the revolution, it was but little that its people knew of the
ocean. Most of the worthy inhabitants of the place actually fancied that
the waves of the sea were as high as mountains, though their notions of
the last were not very precise, there being no elevations in that part
of the country fit even for a windmill.

But Mark cared little for these interrogatories. He was happy; happy
enough, at being the object of so much attention; happier still in the
bosom of a family of which he had always been the favourite and was now
the pride; and happiest of all when he half ravished a kiss from the
blushing cheek of Bridget Yardley. Twelve months had done a great deal
for each of the young couple. If they had not quite made a man of Mark,
they had made him manly, and his _soi-disant_ sister wondered that any
one could be so much improved by a sea-faring life. As for Bridget,
herself, she was just bursting into young womanhood, resembling the bud
as its leaves of green are opening to permit those of the deepest
rose-coloured tint to be seen, before they expand into the full-blown
flower. Mark was more than delighted, he was fascinated; and young as
they were, the month he passed at home sufficed to enable him to tell
his passion, and to obtain a half-ready, half-timid acceptance of the
offer of his hand. All this time, the parents of these very youthful
lovers were as profoundly ignorant of what was going on, as their
children were unobservant of the height to which professional
competition had carried hostilities between their respective parents.
Doctors Woolston and Yardley no longer met even in consultations; or, if
they did meet in the house of some patient whose patronage was of too
much value to be slighted, it was only to dispute, and sometimes
absolutely to quarrel.

At the end of one short month, however, Mark was once more summoned to
his post on board t