hile
the younger, Will Cadwallader, is almost as much under it. Crozier has
passed his term of probationary service, and is now "mate;" while the
other is still but a "midshipmite." And a type of this last, just as
Marryat would have made him; bright face, light-coloured hair, curling
over cheeks ruddy as the bloom upon a Ribston pippin. For he is Welsh,
with eyes of that turquoise blue often observed in the descendants of
the Cymri, and hair of aureous hue.

Quite different is Edward Crozier, who hails from an ancestral hall in
the East Riding of York. His hair, also curling, is dark brown; his
complexion in correspondence. Moustaches already well grown. An
acquiline nose and broad jaw-blades denote resolution--a character borne
out by the glance of an eye that shows no quailing. He is of medium
size, with a figure denoting strength, and capable of great endurance--
in short, carrying out any resolve his mind may make. In point of
personal appearance he is the superior; though both are handsome
fellows, each in his own style.

And as the styles are different, so are their dispositions--these rather
contrasting. Crozier is of a serious, sedate turn and, though anything
but morose, rarely given to mirth; while, from the countenance of
Cadwallader the laugh is scarce ever absent, and the dimple on his
cheek--to employ a printer's phrase--appears stereotyped. With the
young Welshman a joke might be carried to extremes, and he would only
seek his _revanche_ by a lark of like kind. But with him of Yorkshire,
practical jesting would be dangerous.

Notwithstanding this difference of disposition, the two officers are
fast friends; a fact perhaps due to the dissimilitude of their natures.
When not separated by their respective duties, they keep habitually
together on board the ship, and together go ashore. And now, for the
first time in the lives of both, they have commenced making love
together. Fortune has favoured them in this, that they are not in love
with the same lady. Still further, that their sweethearts do not dwell
apart, but live under the same roof, and belong to one family. They are
not sisters, for all that; nor yet cousins, though standing in a certain
relationship. One is the aunt of the other.

Such kinship might argue inequality of age. There is none, however, or
only a very little: scarce so much as between the young officers
themselves. The aunt is but a year or so the senior of her nie