Nothing, when once 'tis understood, is so quickly settled as business. Lord Denmeath, having given the name of his lawyer, broke up the conference, and quitted Teignmouth; Mrs Howel, confused, offended, and gloomy, was not less eager to be gone; though the Admiral would gladly have detained her, to listen to a few more items of his opinions. Lady Aurora, forced to accompany her uncle, softly whispered Juliet, in an affectionate parting embrace, 'My dearest sister, ere long, will give a new and sweet home to her Aurora!' This, indeed, was a powerful plea to favour the impatience of Harleigh; a plea far more weighty than one urged by the Admiral; that she would be married without further parleying, lest people should be pleased to take it into their heads, that she had been the real wife of that scoundrel commissary, and was forced, therefore, to go through the ceremony of being his widow. Called, now, to the kind and splendid repast, the Admiral insisted that Juliet should preside at his hospitable board; where, seated between her revered Bishop and beloved brother, and facing her generous uncle, and the man of her heart, she did the honours of the table to the enchanted strangers, with glowing happiness, though blended with modest confusion. When the desert was served, the joyous Admiral, filling up a bumper of ale, and rising, said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now make free to propose two toasts to you: the first, as in duty bound, is to the King and the Royal Navy. I always put them together; because why? I hold our King to be our pilot, without whom we might soon be all aground; and, in like manner, I hold us tars to be the best part of his majesty's ship's company; for though old England, to my seeming, is at the top of the world, if we tars were to play it false, it would soon pop to the bottom. So here goes to the King and the Royal Navy!' This ceremony past; 'And now, gentlemen and ladies,' he resumed, 'as I mortally hate a secret; having taken frequent note that what ought not to be said is commonly something that ought not to be done; I shall make bold to propose a second bumper, to the happy espousals of the Honourable Miss Granville; who, you are to know, is my niece; with a very honest gentleman, who is at my elbow; and who had the kindness to take a liking to her before he knew that she had a Lord on one side, and, moreover, an Admiral on t'other for her relations; nor yet that she would have been a lady in her own right, if her father had not taken the long journey before her grandfather.' This toast being gaily drunk by every one, save the blushing Juliet, the Admiral sent out his grinning sailor, with a bottle of port, to repeat it with the postilions.