eculiar tenderness and affection in the manner in
which she, involuntarily perhaps, made this reference to some one who
was not present; and the rising tear trembled and glistened in her eye,
like the jewel in the miser's fingers.

I had seen, as the sordid wretch eyed the ring with secret satisfaction
by the window, from its brilliance, that it was a gem of value. It
glittered and sparkled in the light, with an intensity that nothing
equals but the diamond; and I was determined that the fair and
unfortunate owner should not be thus imposed upon. Just before the
bargain was completed, however, as I was about to interpose myself,
another gentleman, who had also been watching the procedure, stepped
forward and declared that that beautiful ring should not be thus
sacrificed to the rapacious Hebrew. The latter at once endeavored to
hasten matters, and declaring the bargain to have been completed, would
have succeeded in thrusting the jewel into the drawer, but for the
resolution of the gentleman, who seized and saved it. The wretch
muttered something about people's interfering in business that was
exclusively his own concern, but to no purpose. The poor widow was
rescued from his fangs; and although it was a struggle to part with the
ring, which indeed contained a choice brilliant, her heart was
gladdened by the receipt of seventy-five dollars, from one who was
willing to pay its value.

The tale of this poor lady in whose case my sympathies had been thus
enlisted, was not without interest. She was an orphan, daughter of a
Virginia planter who had been eaten into poverty by his own slaves, so
that his children were left portionless, and had been married when
young to one of those high-minded, gallant spirits, who bear their
country's flag so proudly on the wave--brave, and generous to a fault,
and in fact one of those who almost literally "spend half a crown out
of six-pence a day." She was adored by her husband, to whom she early
presented several cherub-looking sailor-boys, and while he lived to
supply her wants, though free-hearted and reckless of expenditure, she
had always enough for the present, and "a shot in the locker," to serve
while he was tossing upon the main. But alas! she had occasion too soon
to deplore the capricious uncertainty of all sublunary enjoyments.

Never was a more beautiful day, nor a more gallant spectacle, than when
the ship to which Lieutenant ---- was attached, got underway, and
departed f