“So unjust to yourself again,” resumed Alice. “You are very kind--kinder than I deserve by far,” replied Coverdale. He paused, then continued, “I don’t think I was naturally such a bear; but from childhood I have had to battle with the world on my own behalf. Did Arthur ever tell you any of my earlier history?” “No; he often alluded to it as curious, but said we ought to see you first, and then we should understand you better and care more to hear it,” was the simple reply. Harry smiled. “The only romantic episode in my career occurred when I was a very young boy,” he said, “so young, that if I had not heard the story over and over again from the mouth of my late uncle, the old Admiral, I should scarcely have remembered it. To enable you to comprehend the situation properly, I must trouble you with a few family details. My grandfather had two sons--the Admiral the elder, and my father the younger. My father, when a lieutenant in a marching regiment, fell in love with a very pretty, amiable but portionless girl; my grandfather desired him to marry an heiress; my father refused, and urged his affection for another; my grandfather grew imperative, my father recusant; my grandfather stormed, my father persisted; and the affair ended by my father marrying his lady-love, and my grandfather disinheriting him for so doing. The natural consequences ensued: my grandfather devoted his fortune and influence to my uncle’s advancement, and at the age of fifty he became an admiral; at the same age my father found himself a captain, existing on half-pay, with a microscopic pension and an incurable wound in his side, as rewards for having served his country. ‘England expects every man to do his duty,’ and occasionally recompenses him for it with honourable starvation. As my father’s health decreased his expenses increased, unpaid doctors’ bills stared him in the face, and butchers and bakers grew uncivil and importunate.