"Jack!" cried he. "In a sailor's jacket, too! What is this?"
"He goes out as a mate to China," said she, calmly. "He wrote me but half a dozen lines, but they were full of hope and cheerfulness. He said that he had every prospect of getting a ship, when he was once out; that an old messmate had written to his father--a great merchant at Shanghai--about him, and that he had not the slightest fears for his future."
"Would any one believe in a reverse so complete as this?" cried Augustus, as he clasped his hands before him. "Who ever heard of such ruin in so short a time?"
"Jack certainly takes no despairing view of life," said she, quietly.
"What! does he pretend to say it is nothing to descend from his rank as an officer of the navy, with a brilliant prospect before him, and an affluent connection at his back, to be a common sailor, or, at best, one grade removed from a common sailor, and his whole family beggared? Is this the picture he can afford to look on with pleasure or with hope? The man who sees in his downfall no sacrifice or no degradation, has no sympathy of mine. To tell me that he is stout-hearted is absurd; he is simply unfeeling."
Nelly's face and even her neck became crimson, and her eyes flashed indignantly; but she repressed the passionate words that were almost on her lips, and taking the photograph from him, replaced it in the drawer, and turned the key.
"Has Marion written to you?" asked he, after a pause.
"Only a few lines. I 'm afraid she 's not very happy in her exalted condition, after all, for she concluded with these words: 'It is a cruel blow that has befallen you, but don't fancy that there are not miseries as hard to bear in life as those which display themselves in public and flaunt their sufferings before the world.'"
"That old fop's temper, perhaps, is hard to bear with," said he, carelessly.
"You must write to George L'Estrange, Gusty," said she, coaxingly. "There are no letters he likes so much as yours. He says you are the only one who ever knew how to advise without taking that tone of superiority that is so offensive, and he needs advice just now,--he is driven half wild with dictation and interference."
She talked on in this strain for some time, till he grew gradually calmer; and his features, losing their look of intensity and eagerness, regained their ordinary expression of gentleness and quiet.