es of an open-hearted, simple man, like the
sailor. They met, accordingly, for what the general facetiously called the
review, and what the admiral innocently termed his survey, at the house of
the former, when the young gentlemen were submitted to his inspection.

Francis Denbigh was about four and twenty, of a feeble body, and with a
face marked with the small-pox, to approaching deformity; his eye was
brilliant and piercing, but unsettled, and at times wild--his manner
awkward, constrained, and timid. There would be seen, it is true, an
intelligence and animation, which occasionally lighted his countenance
into gleams of sunshine, that caused you to overlook the lesser
accompaniments of complexion and features in the expression; but they were
transient, and inevitably vanished whenever his father spoke or in any
manner mingled in his pursuits.

An observer close as Mrs. Wilson, would have said that the feelings of the
father and son were not such as ought to exist between parent and child.

But the admiral, who regarded model and rigging a good deal, satisfied
himself with muttering, as he turned his eye on the junior--

"He may do for a duke--but I would not have him for a cockswain."

George was a year younger than Francis; in form, stature, and personal
grace, the counterpart of his father; his eye was less keen but more
attractive than that of his brother; his air open, polished, and manly.

"Ah!" thought the sailor, as he ended a satisfactory survey of the youth,
"what a thousand pities Denbigh did not send him to sea!"

The thing was soon settled, and George was to be the happy man. Sir Peter
concluded to dine with his friend, in order to settle preliminaries over
the bottle by themselves; the young men and their mother being engaged to
their uncle the duke.

"Well, Denbigh," cried the admiral, as the last servant withdrew, "when do
you mean to have the young couple spliced?"

"Why," replied the wary soldier, who knew he could not calculate on
obedience to his mandate with as great a certainty as his friend--"the
better way is to bring the young people together, in order that they may
become acquainted, you know."

"Acquainted--together--" cried his companion, in a little surprise, "what
better way is there to bring them together, than to have them up before a
priest, or to make them acquainted by letting them swing in the same
hammock?"

"It might answer the end, indeed," said the general, with a sm