“The point,” replied the captain, “about which I’ve come here to-day. It ain’t a point o’ the compass; nevertheless, I’ve been steerin’ it in my mind’s eye for a considerable time past. The fact is” (here the captain hesitated), “I—I’ve made up my mind to take my little Alice along with me this voyage.”

The Misses Dunning wore unusually tall caps, and their countenances were by nature uncommonly long, but the length to which they grew on hearing this announcement was something preternaturally awful.

“Take Ailie to sea!” exclaimed Miss Martha Dunning, in horror.

“To fish for whales!” added Miss Jane Dunning, in consternation.

“Brother, you’re mad!” they exclaimed together, after a breathless pause; “and you’ll do nothing of the kind,” they added firmly.

Now, the manner in which the Misses Dunning received this intelligence greatly relieved their eccentric brother. He had fully anticipated, and very much dreaded, that they would at once burst into tears, and being a tender-hearted man he knew that he could not resist that without a hard struggle. A flood of woman’s tears, he was wont to say, was the only sort of salt water storm he hadn’t the heart to face. But abrupt opposition was a species of challenge which the captain always accepted at once—off-hand. No human power could force him to any course of action.

In this latter quality Captain Dunning was neither eccentric nor singular.

“I’m sorry you don’t like my proposal, my dear sisters,” said he; “but I’m resolved.”

“You won’t!” said Martha.

“You shan’t!” cried Jane.

“I will!” replied the captain.

There was a pause here of considerable length, during which the captain observed that Martha’s nostrils began to twitch nervously. Jane, observing the fact, became similarly affected. To the captain’s practised eye these symptoms were as good as a barometer. He knew that the storm was coming, and took in all sail at once (mentally) to be ready for it.

It came! Martha and Jane Dunning were for once driven from the shelter of their wonted propriety—they burst simultaneously into tears, and buried their respective faces in their respective pocket-handkerchiefs, which were immaculately clean and had to be hastily unfolded for the purpose.

“Now, now, my dear girls,” cried the captain, starting up and patting their shoulders, while poor little Ailie clasped her hands, sat down on a footstool, looked up in their faces—or, rather, at the backs of the hands which covered their faces—and wept quietly.

“It’s very cruel, George—indeed it is,” sobbed Martha; “you know how we love her.”

“Very true,” remarked the obdurate captain; “but you don’t know how I love her, and how sad it makes me to see so little of her, and to think that she may be learning to forget me—or, at least,” added the captain, correcting himself as Ailie looked at him reproachfully through her tears—“at least to do without me. I can’t bear the thought. She’s all I have left to me, and—”

“Brother,” interrupted Martha, looking hastily up, “did you ever before hear of such a thing as taking a little girl on a voyage to the whale-fishing?”

“No, never,” replied the captain; “what has that got to do with it?”

Both ladies held up their hands and looked aghast. The idea of any man venturing to do what no one ever thought of doing before was so utterly subversive of all their ideas of propriety—such a desperate piece of profane originality—that they remained speechless.

“George,” said Martha, drying her eyes, and speaking in tones of deep solemnity, “did you ever read Robinson Crusoe?”

“Yes, I did, when I was a boy; an’ that wasn’t yesterday.”

“And did you,” continued the lady in the same sepulchral tone, “did you note how that man—that beacon, if I may use the expression, set up as a warning to deter all wilful boys and men from reckless, and wicked, and wandering, and obstreperous courses—did you note, I say, how that man, that beacon, was shipwrecked, and spent a dreary existence on an uninhabited and dreadful island, in company with a low, dissolute, black, unclothed companion called Friday?”

“Yes,” answered the captain, seeing that she paused for a reply.

“And all,” continued Martha, “in consequence of his resolutely and obstinately, and wilfully and wickedly going to sea?”

“Well, it couldn’t have happened if he hadn’t gone to sea, no doubt.”

“Then,” argued Martha, “will you, can you, George, contemplate the possibility of your only daughter coming to the same dreadful end?”

George, not exactly seeing the connection, rubbed his nose with his forefinger, and replied—“Certainly not.”

“Then you are bound,” continued Martha, in triumph, “by all that is upright and honourable, by all the laws of humanity and propriety, to give up this wild intention—and you must!”

“There!” cried Miss Jane emphatically, as if the argument were unanswerable—as indeed it was, being incomprehensible.

The last words were unfortunate. They merely riveted the captain’s determination.

“You talk a great deal of nonsense, Martha,” he said, rising to depart. “I’ve fixed to take her, so the sooner you make up your minds to it the better.”

The sisters knew their brother’s character too well to waste more time in vain efforts; but Martha took him by the arm, and said earnestly—“Will you promise me, my dear George, that when she comes back from this voyage, you will never take her on another?”

“Yes, dear sister,” replied the captain, somewhat melted, “I promise that.”

Without another word Martha sat down and held out her arms to Ailie, who incontinently rushed into them. Propriety fled for the nonce, discomfited. Miss Martha’s curls were disarranged beyond repair, and Miss Martha’s collar was crushed to such an extent that the very laundress who had washed and starched and ironed it would have utterly failed to recognise it. Miss Jane looked on at these improprieties in perfect indifference—nay, when, after her sister had had enough, the child was handed over to her, she submitted to the same violent treatment without a murmur. For once Nature was allowed to have her way, and all three had a good hearty satisfactory cry; in the midst of which Captain Dunning left them, and, proceeding on board his ship, hastened the preparations for his voyage to the Southern Seas.

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