Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/271

 can be no doubt. My embarrassment was ascribed to that modesty ever attendant on real worth.

It has been said that true merit blushes at being discovered: but I have lived to see merit that could not blush, and the want of it that could, while the latter has marched off with all the honours due to the former. The blush that burned on my cheek, at that moment, would have gone far to have condemned a criminal at the Old Bailey; but in the countenance of a handsome young man, was received as the unfailing marks of "a pure ingenuous soul." I had been too long at school to be ashamed of wearing laurels I had never won; and, having often received a flogging which I did not deserve, I thought myself equally well entitled to any advantages which the chances of war might throw in my way; so having set my tender conscience at rest, I sat myself down between my new mistress and her father, and made