The ladies had made their escape, as soon us dinner was finished; and Morton, on the watch, like a cat to steal cream, was on the alert, as soon as he perceived their intentions, and accompanied them on deck. To his great satisfaction, none of the Spanish officers made any attempt to leave the table; for, as the old Don had just got fairly under weigh with one of his campaigning stories, they were afraid to treat him with so much disrespect, and, of course, hazard their hopes of being invited to attend him again upon a similar party. Accordingly, Morton had the pleasure of enjoying the society of the ladies, without interruption, and found many opportunities of saying a few words to Isabella. In this, he was again much beholden to the skilful manoeuvring of his messmate, Coffin, who was already higher in the good graces of the mother and daughters than Morton, who, though a handsome man, had not so much of that dashing, off-hand, sort of gallantry as the other; and which goes an incredible way with most ladies. Morton had seen more of the polite world, and was better educated, and more refined in his manners, than Coffin; but, besides being, at that time, wholly engrossed and engaged by a particular object, he had that peculiar kind of modesty, or diffidence, that does a man so much injury with the other sex; who, though they pretend to prize modesty so highly among themselves, abominate it as unnatural, absurd, and affected, in men; while the pert and obsequious fluttering of a fashionable water-fly, which is always received with a smile, is generally more prized, and rewarded more bountifully still. There is, however, some consolation in the thought, that repentance always overtakes, and punishes, the silly woman who has allowed herself to be so fatally "pleased with a rattle;" she perceives, after marriage, that she has given herself irrevocably to a thing "of shreds and patches." There is a certain sort of little attentions, that ladies generally expect from our sex, and a skill and adroitness in showing which makes no inconsiderable part of a modern gentleman's education. I have known many young men, who could not write two consecutive sentences, without coming to an open rupture with orthography, grammar, or common sense, or all three, if it was to save their well-_stocked_ necks from the halter, or their souls, (what of that commodity they have,) from Satan's grip, but who stood very high, and, doubtless, deservedly so, in the estimation of the fair sex, simply from their skill and precision in going through a certain routine of little trifling acts of politeness.