could not keep pace with the conversation of the others.

When she could let her attention take its natural course again,
she found the Miss Musgroves just fetching the Navy List
(their own navy list, the first that had ever been at Uppercross),
and sitting down together to pore over it, with the professed view
of finding out the ships that Captain Wentworth had commanded.

"Your first was the Asp, I remember; we will look for the Asp."

"You will not find her there. Quite worn out and broken up.
I was the last man who commanded her. Hardly fit for service then.
Reported fit for home service for a year or two, and so I was sent off
to the West Indies."

The girls looked all amazement.

"The Admiralty," he continued, "entertain themselves now and then,
with sending a few hundred men to sea, in a ship not fit to be employed.
But they have a great many to provide for; and among the thousands
that may just as well go to the bottom as not, it is impossible
for them to distinguish the very set who may be least missed."

"Phoo! phoo!" cried the Admiral, "what stuff these young fellows talk!
Never was a better sloop than the Asp in her day. For an old built sloop,
you would not see her equal. Lucky fellow to get her! He knows there
must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her
at the same time. Lucky fellow to get anything so soon,
with no more interest than his."