marriage,
if we will wait till I am made a commander, and then my father promises
me three hundred a year, which, with my pay, will be a great deal more
than we shall want. To be sure, I had to undertake to give up some
thousands which might some day come to me; but it would not be for a
long time, at all events, and, in my opinion, perhaps never; and I was
determined not to risk the danger of losing you for money, or any other
cause."

"Oh, my dear Gilbert! and have you sacrificed your fortune and your
future prospects for my sake?" said Mary, her eye's filling with tears;
and yet not looking, after all, as if she was very sorry.

"No, no! not in the slightest degree. I have laid them out, as a
merchant would say, to the very best advantage, by securing what I know
will tend to my very great and continued happiness," answered Gilbert
Devereux, adding--

But never mind what he said or did after that. Certain it is, Mary made
no further objections, and Mary and he were regularly betrothed, which
is a very pleasant state of existence, provided people may hope to marry
before very long, and expect, when they do marry, to have something to
live on.

Soon after this Gilbert Devereux went to Portsmouth to pass his
examination, and came back a full-blown lieutenant, with an epaulette on
his left shoulder, which, when he put on his uniform, was very much
admired.

Paul awoke very early the morning after Devereux had returned, in the
same little room in which he slept before he went to sea, and which he
had so often pictured to his mind's eye as he lay in his hammock tossed
by the stormy sea. A stout sea-chest stood open in the room, and over
it was hung a new uniform with brass buttons; a bright quadrant, and
spy-glass, and dirk, and gold-laced hat, lay on the table, and the chest
seemed filled to overflowing with the articles of a wardrobe, and a
variety of little comforts which his fond mother and sisters, he was
sure, had prepared for him. He turned round in his bed and gazed at the
scene.

"I have dreamed this dream before," he said to himself. "It was vivid
then--it is vivid now; but I will not be deceived as I was then!--oh,
how bitterly--No, no, it is a dream. I fear that it is all a dream!"

But when the bright sunbeams came in and glittered on the quadrant and
buttons, and the brass of the telescope, and on the gold lace, and the
handle of the dirk, and the birds sang cheerily to greet the glorious
su