"All merged in my friendship, Sophia. I would assist any brother

officer's wife that I could, and I would bring anything of Harville's

from the world's end, if he wanted it. But do not imagine that I did

not feel it an evil in itself."

"Depend upon it, they were all perfectly comfortable."

"I might not like them the better for that perhaps. Such a number of

women and children have no right to be comfortable on board."

"My dear Frederick, you are talking quite idly. Pray, what would

become of us poor sailors' wives, who often want to be conveyed to one

port or another, after our husbands, if everybody had your feelings?"

"My feelings, you see, did not prevent my taking Mrs Harville and all

her family to Plymouth."

"But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if

women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of

us expect to be in smooth water all our days."

"Ah! my dear," said the Admiral, "when he had got a wife, he will sing

a different tune. When he is married, if we have the good luck to live

to another war, we shall see him do as you and I, and a great many

others, have done. We shall have him very thankful to anybody that

will bring him his wife."

"Ay, that we shall."

"Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth. "When once married people

begin to attack me with,--'Oh! you will think very differently, when

you are married.' I can only say, 'No, I shall not;' and then they say

again, 'Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it."

He got up and moved away.

"What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am!" said Mrs Musgrove

to Mrs Croft.

"Pretty well, ma'am in the fifteen years of my marriage; though many

women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic four times, and have

been once to the East Indies, and back again, and only once; besides

being in different places about home: Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar.

But I never went beyond the Streights, and never was in the West

Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies."

Mrs Musgrove had not a word to say in dissent; she could not accuse

herself of having ever called them anything in the whole course of her

life.

"And I do assure you, ma'am," pursued Mrs Croft, "that nothing can

exceed the accommodations of a man-of-war; I speak, you know, of the

higher rates. When you come to a frigate, of course, you are more

confined; though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy in one of

them; and I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been

spent on board a ship. While we were together, you know, there was

nothing to be feared. Thank God! I have always been blessed with

excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me. A little

disordered always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but

never knew what sickness was afterwards. The only time I ever really

suffered in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself

unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by

myself at Deal, when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North

Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of

imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I

should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing

ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience."




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