Never having been married myself, I can only speak on report." "Ah! this may be so with _men_; but--surely--surely--_women_ never can feel thus!" "I suppose, a sailor's daughter yourself, you know Jack's account of his wife's domestic creed! 'A good fire, a clean hearth, the children abed, and the husband at sea,' is supposed to be the climax of felicity." "This may do for the sailor's jokes, Admiral Bluewater," answered Mildred, smiling; "but it will hardly ease a breaking heart.

I fear from all I have heard this afternoon, and from the sudden sailing of the ships, that a great battle is at hand ?" "And why should you, a British officer's daughter, dread that?
Have you so little faith in us, as to suppose a battle will necessarily bring defeat! I have seen much of my own profession, Miss Dutton, and trust I am in some small degree above the rhodomontade of the braggarts; but it is _not_ usual for us to meet the enemy, and to give those on shore reason to be ashamed of the English flag.

It has never yet been my luck to meet a Frenchman who did not manifest a manly desire to do his country credit; and I have always felt that we must fight hard for him before we could get him; nor has the result ever disappointed me.

Still, fortune, or skill, or _right_, is commonly of our side, and has given us the advantage in the end." "And to which, sir, do you ascribe a success at sea, so very uniform ?" "As a Protestant, I ought to say to our _religion_; but, this my own knowledge of Protestant _vices_ rejects.

Then to say _fortune_ would be an exceeding self-abasement--one, that between us, is not needed; and I believe I must impute it to skill.