The evening before Mrs. Conway had had a long talk with Ralph.  “I do not think I need to give you much advice, my boy.  You have already been out in the world on your own account, and have shown that you can make your way.  You are going into a life, Ralph, that has many temptations.  Do not give way to them, my boy.  Above all, set your face against what is the curse of our times:  over-indulgence in wine.  It is the ruin of thousands.  Do not think it is manly to be vicious because you see others are.  Always live, if you can, so that if you kept a true diary you could hand it to me to read without a blush on your cheek; and always bear in mind, that though I shall not be there to see you, a higher and purer eye will be upon you.  You will try; won’t you, Ralph?”

“I will indeed, mother.”

Mr. Penfold did his best to keep up the spirits of all of the party when they parted on board the packet; but Mrs. Conway quite broke down at last.  Mabel cried unrestrainedly, and his own eyes had a suspicious moisture in them as he shook hands with Ralph.  Fortunately they had arrived a little late at the wharf, and the partings were consequently cut short.  The bell rang, and all the visitors were hurried ashore; then the hawsers were thrown off and the sails hoisted.  As long as the party remained in sight Ralph stood on the stern waving his handkerchief to them; then, having removed the traces of tears from his cheeks, he turned to look at what was going on around him.

The packet was a brig of about two hundred tons, and she carried about twenty passengers, of whom fully half Ralph judged by their appearance to be military men.  Before they had reached the mouth of the river he found that one among them Captain O’Connor, belonged to his own regiment, as did another young fellow about his own age named Stapleton, who had been gazetted on the same day as himself.  Captain O’Connor, who was a cheery Irishman, full of life and spirits, at once took Ralph in hand, and was not long in drawing from him the story of his adventures with the privateers.

“You will do, my lad.  I can see you have got the roughness rubbed off you already, and will get on capitally with the regiment.  I can’t say as much for that young fellow Stapleton.  He seems to be completely puffed up with the sense of his own importance, and to be an unlicked sort of cub altogether.  However, I have known more unlikely subjects than he is turn out decent fellows after a course of instruction from the boys; but he will have rather a rough time of it at first I expect.  You will be doing him a kindness if you take an opportunity to tell him that a newly-joined ensign is not regarded in the same light as a commander-in-chief.  It is like a new boy going to school, you know.  If fellows find out he is a decent sort of boy, they soon let him alone; but if he is an ass, especially a conceited ass, he has rather a rough time of it.  As you are in the same cabin with him, and have had the advantage of having knocked about the world a bit, you might gently hint this to him.”