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and which at last, on some very wet day, is lent to yourself.
Ah! she was a dear old Asp to me. She did all that I wanted.
I knew she would. I knew that we should either go to the bottom together,
or that she would be the making of me; and I never had two days
of foul weather all the time I was at sea in her; and after
taking privateers enough to be very entertaining, I had the good luck
in my passage home the next autumn, to fall in with the very French frigate
I wanted. I brought her into Plymouth; and here another instance of luck.
We had not been six hours in the Sound, when a gale came on,
which lasted four days and nights, and which would have done for
poor old Asp in half the time; our touch with the Great Nation
not having much improved our condition. Four-and-twenty hours later,
and I should only have been a gallant Captain Wentworth,
in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers; and being lost
in only a sloop, nobody would have thought about me." Anne's shudderings
were to herself alone; but the Miss Musgroves could be as open
as they were sincere, in their exclamations of pity and horror.

"And so then, I suppose," said Mrs Musgrove, in a low voice,
as if thinking aloud, "so then he went away to the Laconia, and there
he met with our poor boy. Charles, my dear," (beckoning him to her),
"do ask Captain Wentworth where it was he first met with your poor brother.
I always forgot."

"It was at Gibraltar, mother, I know. Dick had been left ill at Gibraltar,
with a recommendation from his former captain to Captain Wentworth."

"Oh! but, Charles, tell Captain Wentworth, he need not be afraid
of mentioning poor Dick before me, for it would be rather a pleasure
to hear him talked of by such a good friend."

Charles, being somewhat more mindful of the probabilities of the case,
only nodded in reply, and walked away.

The girls were now hunting for the Laconia; and Captain Wentworth
could not deny himself the pleasure of taking the precious volume
into his own hands to save them the trouble, and once more read aloud
the little statement of her name and rate, and present
non-commissioned class, observing over it that she too had been
one of the best friends man ever had.

"Ah! those were pleasant days when I had the Laconia! How fast I
made money in her. A friend of mine and I had such a lovely cruise
together off the Western Islands. Poor Harville, sister!
You know how much he wanted money: worse than myself. He had a wife.
Excellent fellow. I shall never forget his happiness. He felt it all,
so much for her sake. I wished for him again the next summer,
when I had still the same luck in the Mediterranean."

"And I am sure, Sir." said Mrs Musgrove, "it was a lucky day for us,
when you were put captain into that ship. We shall never forget
what you did."

Her feelings made her speak low; and Captain Wentworth,
hearing only in part, and probably not having Dick Musgrove at all
near his thoughts, looked rather in suspense, and as if waiting for more.

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