earce Ripley, his son,
I should not have been surprised," he answered. "The fact is, my friend
Ripley became a master late in life. He had served in the lower grades
of the profession, and if the rules of the service had allowed it, he
should have been made a post-captain. I cannot tell you all the brave
things he has done. When in charge of a prize, he fought a most gallant
action; he prevented his ship's company from joining the mutineers at
the Nore. On two several occasions, he saved the ship from being
wrecked, not to mention his conduct on the first of June, and on
numerous previous occasions. I placed his son on the quarterdeck,
predicting that he would be an honour to the service, and so he is, and
I am proud of him."

While the admiral was speaking, Alice was considering whether she should
confide her case to him, and beg him to intercede with her father, or
rather to speak to him of Mr Ripley in a way which might overcome his
prejudices. She almost gasped for breath in her agitation, but her
resolution was taken, and without loss of time she hurriedly told him of
her engagement to Sir Pearce Ripley.

"I am heartily glad to hear of it, my dear young lady," exclaimed the
admiral warmly; "he is worthy of you and you are of him, and that is
saying a great deal for you. Hoity toity! I wonder my friend General
Verner has not more sense; the idea of dismissing one of the finest
officers in the service because he hasn't a rent-roll and cannot show a
pedigree as many do a yard long, and without a word of truth from
beginning to end. If a man is noble in himself what does it matter who
his father was? The best pedigree, in my opinion, is that which a man's
grandson will have to show. Better to have one noble fellow like old
Ripley there for a father, than a line of twenty indifferent
progenitors, such as nine-tenths of those who set such store by their
ancestry can boast of."

Alice very naturally agreed with the admiral, who was himself a man of
much older family than her father. He attacked the general the next
morning. He hated circumlocution and went directly to the point. "You
object to your daughter marrying Sir Pearce Ripley because his father
was a boatswain. I tell you I was for many years of inferior rank to a
boatswain. I entered the navy as captain's servant. What do you say to
that? It does not signify what a man has been, it is what he is should
be considered. Now, my dear general, j