hrong. Young ladies
with flowers and velvet streamers down their backs, old ladies portly
and bejewelled, gentlemen looking civil, abounded wherever he turned his
eyes. He could see Flora's graceful head bending as she received guest
after guest, and the smile with which she answered congratulations on
her brother's return; but Harry he did not so quickly perceive, and he
was trying to discover in what corner he might have hidden himself, when
Meta stood beside him, asking whether their Eton journey had prospered,
and how poor Hector was feeling at Harry's return.

"Where is Harry?" asked Norman. "Is he not rather out of his element?"

"No, indeed," said Meta, smiling. "Why, he is the lion of the night!"

"Poor fellow, how he must hate it!"

"Come this way, into the front room. There, look at him--is it not nice
to see him, so perfectly simple and at his ease, neither shy nor elated?
And what a fine-looking fellow he is!"

Meta might well say so. The trim, well-knit, broad-chested form, the
rosy embrowned honest face, the shining light-brown curly locks, the
dancing well-opened blue eyes, and merry hearty smile showed to the best
advantage, in array that even Tom would not have spurned, put on with
naval neatness; and his attitude and manner were so full of manly ease,
that it was no wonder that every eye rested on him with pleasure. Norman
smiled at his own mistake, and asked who were the lady and gentleman
conversing with him. Meta mentioned one of the most distinguished of
English names, and shared his amusement in seeing Harry talking to
them with the same frank unembarrassed ease as when he had that morning
shaken hands with their son, in the capacity of Hector Ernescliffe's
fag. No one present inspired him with a tithe of the awe he felt for a
post-captain--it was simply a pleasant assembly of good-natured folks,
glad to welcome home a battered sailor, and of pretty girls, for whom he
had a sailor's admiration, but without forwardness or presumption--all
in happy grateful simplicity.

"I suppose you cannot dance?" said Flora to him.

"I!" was Harry's interjection; and while she was looking round for a
partner to whom to present him, he had turned to the young daughter of
his new acquaintance, and had her on his arm, unconscious that George
had been making his way to her.

Flora was somewhat uneasy, but the mother was looking on smiling, and
expressed her delight in the young midshipman; and Mrs. Rivers, wh