early one morning, during the time the latter was out, in company with a female friend of about her own age, to take what her aunt believed was her customary walk before breakfast.  Philadelphia, in 1796, was not the town it is to-day.  It then lay, almost entirely, on the shores of the Delaware, those of the Schuylkill being completely in the country.  What was more, the best quarters were still near the river, and the distance between the Rancocus—­meaning Mark’s ship, and not the creek of that name—­and the house of Bridget’s aunt, was but trifling.  The ceremony took place in the cabin of the vessel just named, which, now that the captain was ashore in his own house, Mark had all to himself, no second-mate having been shipped, and which was by no means an inappropriate place for the nuptials of a pair like that which our young people turned out to be, in the end.

The Rancocus, though not a large, was a very fine, Philadelphia-built ship, then the best vessels of the country.  She was of a little less than four hundred tons in measurement, but she had a very neat and commodious poop-cabin.  Captain Crutchely had a thrifty wife, who had contributed her full share to render her husband comfortable, and Bridget thought that the room in which she was united to Mark was one of the prettiest she had ever seen.  The reader, however, is not to imagine it a cabin ornamented with marble columns, rose-wood, and the maples, as so often happens now-a-days.  No such extravagance was dreamed of fifty years ago; but, as far as judicious arrangements, neat joiner’s work, and appropriate furniture went, the cabin of the Rancocus was a very respectable little room.  The circumstance that it was on deck, contributed largely to its appearance and comfort, sunken cabins, or those below decks, being necessarily much circumscribed in small ships, in consequence of being placed in a part of the vessel that is contracted in its dimensions under water, in order to help their sailing qualities.

The witnesses of the union of our hero and heroine were the female friend of Bridget named, the officiating clergyman, and one seaman who had sailed with the bridegroom in all his voyages, and who was now retained on board the vessel as a ship-keeper, intending to go out in her again as soon as she should be ready for sea.  The name of this mariner was Betts, or Bob Betts as he was commonly called; and as he acts a conspicuous part in the events to be recorded, it may be well to say a word or two more of his history and character; Bob Betts was a Jerseyman;—­or, as he would have pronounced the word himself, a Jarseyman—­in the American meaning of the word, however, and not in the English.  Bob was born in Cape May county, and in the State of New Jersey, United States of America.  At the period of which we are now writing, he must have been about five-and-thirty, and seemingly a confirmed bachelor.  The windows of Bob’s father’s house looked out upon the