But Mark cared little for these interrogatories.  He was happy; happy enough, at being the object of so much attention; happier still in the bosom of a family of which he had always been the favourite and was now the pride; and happiest of all when he half ravished a kiss from the blushing cheek of Bridget Yardley.  Twelve months had done a great deal for each of the young couple.  If they had not quite made a man of Mark, they had made him manly, and his soi-disant sister wondered that any one could be so much improved by a sea-faring life.  As for Bridget, herself, she was just bursting into young womanhood, resembling the bud as its leaves of green are opening to permit those of the deepest rose-coloured tint to be seen, before they expand into the full-blown flower.  Mark was more than delighted, he was fascinated; and young as they were, the month he passed at home sufficed to enable him to tell his passion, and to obtain a half-ready, half-timid acceptance of the offer of his hand.  All this time, the parents of these very youthful lovers were as profoundly ignorant of what was going on, as their children were unobservant of the height to which professional competition had carried hostilities between their respective parents.  Doctors Woolston and Yardley no longer met even in consultations; or, if they did meet in the house of some patient whose patronage was of too much value to be slighted, it was only to dispute, and sometimes absolutely to quarrel.

At the end of one short month, however, Mark was once more summoned to his post on board the Rancocus, temporarily putting an end to his delightful interviews with Bridget.  The lovers had made Anne their confidant, and she, well-meaning girl, seeing no sufficient reason why the son of one respectable physician should not be a suitable match for the daughter of another respectable physician, encouraged them in their vows of constancy, and pledges to become man and wife at a future, but an early day.  To some persons all this may seem exceedingly improper, as well as extremely precocious; but the truth compels us to say, that its impropriety was by no means as obvious as its precocity.  The latter it certainly was, though Mark had shot up early, and was a man at a time of life when lads, in less genial climates, scarcely get tails to their coats; but its impropriety must evidently be measured by the habits of the state of society in which the parties were brought up, and by the duties that had been inculcated.  In America, then, as now, but little heed was taken by parents, more especially in what may be called the middle classes, concerning the connections thus formed by their children.  So Long as the parties were moral, bore good characters, had nothing particular against them, and were of something near the same social station, little else was asked for; or, if more were actually required, it was usually when it was too late, and after the young people had got themselves too deeply in love to allow ordinary prudential reasons to have their due force.