and arduous services, you are about to receive a proper
reward."

"I will acknowledge, Admiral Bluewater," returned Parker, earnestly,
"that it would be peculiarly grateful to receive some mark of the
approbation of my sovereign; principally on account of my dear wife and
children. We are not, like yourself, descended from a noble family; but
must carve our rights to distinction, and they who have never known
honours of this nature, prize them highly."

"Ay, my good Parker," interrupted the rear-admiral, "and they who have
ever known them, know their emptiness; most especially as they approach
that verge of existence whence the eye looks in a near and fearful
glance, over the vast and unknown range of eternity."

"No doubt, sir; nor am I so vain as to suppose that hairs which have got
to be grey as mine, can last for ever. But, what I was about to say is,
that precious as honours are to the humble, I would cheerfully yield
every hope of the sort I have, to see you on the poop of the Caesar
again, with Mr. Cornet at your elbow, leading the fleet, or following
the motions of the vice-admiral."

"Thank you, my good Parker; that can never be; nor can I say, now, that
I wish it might. When we have cast off from the world, there is less
pleasure in looking back, than in looking ahead. God bless you, Parker,
and keep you, as you ever have been, an honest man."

Stowel was the last to approach the bed, nor did he do it until all had
left the room but Sir Gervaise and himself.

The indomitable good-nature, and the professional nonchalance of
Bluewater, by leaving every subordinate undisturbed in the enjoyment of
his own personal caprices, had rendered the rear-admiral a greater
favourite, in one sense at least, than the commander-in-chief. Stowel,
by his near connection with Bluewater, had profited more by these
peculiarities than any other officer under him, and the effect on his
feelings had been in a very just proportion to the benefits. He could
not refrain, it is true, from remembering the day when he himself had
been a lieutenant in the ship in which the rear-admiral had been a
midshipman, but he no longer recollected the circumstance with the
bitterness that it sometimes drew after it. On the contrary, it was now
brought to his mind merely as the most distant of the many land-marks in
their long and joint services.

"Well, Stowel," observed Bluewater, smiling sadly, "even the old Caesar
must be left behind. It is