Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/84

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THE NAVAL OFFICER.

pealed to Emily herself. "Surely," said I, "your heart is not as hard as those of cur inflexible parents? surely you will be my advocate on this occasion? Bend but one look of disapprobation on my father with those heavenly blue eyes of yours, and, on my life, he will strike his flag."

But the gipsey replied, with a smile, (instigated, no doubt, from head-quarters), that she did not like the idea of her name appearing in the Morning Post as the bride of a lieutenant. "What's a lieutenant, now-a-days?" said she; "nobody. I remember when I was on a visit at Fareham, I used to go to Portsmouth to see the dock-yard and the ships, and there was your great friend the tall admiral, Sir Hurricane Humbug, I think you call him, driving the poor lieutenants about like so many sheep before a dog; there was one always at his heels, like a running footman; and there was another that appeared to me to be chained, like a mastiff, to the door of the admiral's office, except when