y, have taken the
opportunity of that stilly night to lay bare to her the treasures of a
heart that, I am happy to say, is young still; but circumstances forbade
the frank outpouring of my poet soul: in a word, I was obliged to go and
lie down on the flat of my back, and endeavor to control OTHER emotions
which struggled in my breast.

Once, in the night-watches, I arose, and came on deck; the vessel was
not, methought, pitching much; and yet--and yet Neptune was inexorable.
The placid stars looked down, but they gave me no peace. Lavinia
Milliken seemed asleep, and her Horace, in a death-like torpor, was
huddled at her feet. Miss Fanny had quitted the larboard side of
the ship, and had gone to starboard; and I thought that there was a
gentleman beside her; but I could not see very clearly, and returned
to the horrid crib, where Lankin was asleep, and the German fiddler
underneath him was snoring like his own violoncello.

In the morning we were all as brisk as bees. We were in the smooth
waters of the lazy Scheldt. The stewards began preparing breakfast with
that matutinal eagerness which they always show. The sleepers in the
cabin were roused from their horse-hair couches by the stewards' boys
nudging, and pushing, and flapping table-cloths over them. I shaved and
made a neat toilette, and came upon deck just as we lay off that little
Dutch fort, which is, I dare say, described in "Murray's Guide-book,"
and about which I had some rare banter with poor Hicks and Lady
Kicklebury, whose sense of humor is certainly not very keen. He had,
somehow, joined her ladyship's party, and they were looking at the
fort, and its tri-colored flag--that floats familiar in Vandevelde's
pictures--and at the lazy shipping, and the tall roofs, and dumpy church
towers, and flat pastures, lying before us in a Cuyplike haze.

I am sorry to say, I told them the most awful fibs about that fort. How
it had been defended by the Dutch patriot, Van Swammerdam, against the
united forces of the Duke of Alva and Marshal Turenne, whose leg was
shot off as he was leading the last unsuccessful assault, and who turned
round to his aide-de-camp and said, "Allez dire an Premier Consul, que
je meurs avec regret de ne pas avoir assez fait pour la France!" which
gave Lady Kicklebury an opportunity to placer her story of the Duke of
York, and the bombardment of Valenciennes; and caused young Hicks
to look at me in a puzzled and appealing manner and hint that