Mark, the oldest of the children, was in his seventeenth year at the time the sad bereavement occurred--the girls were quite young.

He had always been an active boy--ever disposed to get beyond the judicious restraints which his parents wisely sought to throw around him.

After his mother's death, he attained a wider liberty.

He was still at college when this melancholy event occurred, and continued there for two years; but no longer in correspondence with, and therefore not under the influence of one whose love for him sought ever to hold him back from evil, his natural temperament led him into the indulgence of a liberty that too often went beyond the bounds of propriety.
On leaving college Mr.Clifford conferred with his son touching the profession he wished to adopt, and to his surprise found him bent on entering the navy.

All efforts to discourage the idea were of no avail.