The days at the Hall flew, just like all the days of happy lovers, confoundedly fast.  The more I saw of Emily, the firmer and faster did she rivet my chains.  I was her slave:  but what was best, I became a convert to virtue, because she was virtuous; and to possess her, I knew I must become as like her as my corrupt mind and unruly habits would permit.  I viewed my past life with shame and contrition.  When I attended this amiable, lovely creature to church on a Sunday, and saw her in the posture of devotion before her Maker, I thought her an angel, and I thought it heaven to be near her.  All my thoughts and sentiments seemed changed and refined by her example and her company.  The sparks of religion, so long buried in the ashes of worldly corruption and infidelity, began to revive.  I recalled my beloved mother and the Bible to my recollection; and could I have been permitted to have remained longer with my “governess,” I have no doubt that I should have regained both purity of mind and manner.  I should have bidden adieu to vice and folly, because they could not have dwelt under the same roof with Emily; and I should have loved the Bible and religion, because they were beloved by her:  but my untoward destiny led me a different way.

Chapter XVI

  And oft his smooth and bridled tongue
      Would give the lie to his flushing cheek: 
  He was a coward to the strong: 
      He was a tyrant to the weak.

  SHELLEY.

My father, as soon as he had obtained my promotion, asked for my being employed; and having had a promise from the Admiralty, that promise, unlike thousands of its predecessors and successors, was too rapidly fulfilled.  I received a letter from my father, and a bouncing one from the Admiralty, by the same post, announcing officially my appointment to the D——­ brig, of eighteen guns, at Portsmouth, whither I was directed to repair immediately, and take up my commission.  In this transaction I soon after found there was an underplot, which I was too green to perceive at the time; but the wise heads of the two papas had agreed that a separation between the lovers was absolutely necessary, and that the longer it was delayed, the worse it would be for both of us:  in short, that until I had attained my rank, nothing should be thought of in the way of matrimony.

As the reader is, no doubt, by this time pretty well versed in all the dialogue of parting lovers, I shall not intrude upon his or her patience with a repetition of that which has been much too often repeated, and is equally familiar to the prince and the ploughman.  I should as soon think of describing the Devil’s Punch Bowl, on the road to Portsmouth, where I arrived two days after my appointment.