on to him, and he appeared in the full glory of his naval uniform.
Not much choice had been offered to him. My mother would have
thought it shameful and ungrateful to have no son available, my
father was glad to have the boy's profession fixed, and he himself
was rejoiced to escape from the miseries he knew only too well, and
ready to believe that uniform and dirk would make a man of him at
once, with all his terrors left behind. Perhaps the chief drawback
was that the ladies WOULD say, 'What a darling!' affording Griff
endless opportunities for the good-humoured mockery by which he
concealed his own secret regrets. Did not even Selina Clarkson,
whose red cheeks, dark blue eyes, and jetty profusion of shining
curls, were our notion of perfect beauty, select the little naval
cadet for her partner at the dancing master's ball?

In the first voyage, a cruise in the Pacific, all went well. The
good Admiral had carefully chosen ship and captain; there were an
excellent set of officers, a good tone among the midshipmen, and
Clarence, who was only twelve years old, was constituted the pet of
the cockpit. One lad in especial, Coles by name, attracted by
Clarence's pleasant gentleness, and impelled by the generosity that
shields the weak, became his guardian friend, and protected him from
all the roughnesses in his power. If there were a fault in that
excellent Coles, it was that he made too much of a baby of his
protege, and did not train him to shift for himself: but wisdom and
moderation are not characteristics of early youth. At home we had
great enjoyment of his long descriptive letters, which came under
cover to our father at the Admiralty, but were chiefly intended for
my benefit. All were proud of them, and great was my elation when I
heard papa relate some fact out of them with the preface, 'My boy
tells me, my boy Clarence, in the Calypso; he writes a capital