Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/266

 was not a little increased by the charms of my lovely victim; but I soon recovered 'from the shock, particularly when I saw that no suspicion attached tome. I therefore received the praises of the father and the doctor with a becoming modest diffidence; and, with a hearty shake of the hand from the grateful parent, was wished a good night, and retired to my bed.

As I stood before the looking-glass, laying my watch and exhausted purse on the dressingtable, and leisurely untying my cravat, I could not forbear a glance of approbation at what I thought a very handsome and a very impudent face: I soliloquized on the events of the day, and, as usual, found the summing-up very much against me. "This, then, Sir," said I, "is your road to repentance and reform. You insult your father; quit his house; get up, like a vagabond, behind a gentleman's carriage; are flogged off, break the ribs of an honest man, who has a wife and family to support out of his hard