Your sister would have looked so beautiful and interesting in it. Poor
child! and now she will be disappointed. Never mind, my darling, you may
have to wear them soon yet, if he goes on this way."

Virginia did not seem to mind it at all; she was kissing and patting me,
and was delighted to see me again. But my mother took her by the hand,
and catching up the half-made dress and bonnet in her other, walked away
upstairs to her room, singing:

"There was an old man who lived under a hill,
And if he's not dead, he lives there still."

"So much for motherly love! Dang it, what's her heart made of?" said a
voice. I turned round; it was old Ben, who had been an unobserved
spectator of the scene.




CHAPTER TEN

In which I narrate what I consider the most fortunate Incident in
my Life; and Ben the Whaler confides to me a very strange History


Among the pensioners there was one with whom I must make the reader
acquainted, as he will be an important person in this narrative. His
name was Peter Anderson, a north countryman, I believe, from Greenock;
he had been gunner's mate in the service for many years, and, having
been severely wounded in an action, he had been sent to Greenwich. He