The Lady of the Aroostook

ile a great many things take place in regard to them; they need not account for what they do not do. From time to time a man must show his hand, but save for one supreme exige

and complexion; but Dunham's eyes were blue, and Staniford's dark gray. Their mustaches were blonde, but Dunham's curled jauntily outward at the corners, and his light hair waved over either temple from the parting in the middle. Staniford's mustache was cut short; his hair was clipped tight to his shapely head, and not parted at all; he had a slightly aquiline nose, with sensitive nostrils, showing the cartilage; his face was darkly freckled. They were bot

ip, floating reddish-blue eyes, and a deep dimple in his weak, slightly retreating chin. He had an air at once amiable and baddish, with an expression, curiously blended, of monkey-like humor and spaniel-like apprehensiveness. He did not look well, and till he had swallowed two cups of coffee his hand shook. The captain watched him furtively from under his bushy eyebrows, and was evidently troubled and preoccupied, addressing a word now and then to Mr. Watterson, who, by vi

know," sa

in the use of his fork. "I

t's doubt Lydia answered, "I didn't know it w

ertain lady-like sweetness of manner which he had. "Acc

e of year," said

eated Mr. Watterson, as if the

t it drop. But presently Staniford himself attempted the civility of some conversation with Lydia. H

Lydia, "it w

of the summer, so far," continued

know!" cr

did not say

's on deck, the former said signific

e!" answere

with people who had lived in Europe; he read the Revue des Deux Mondes habitually, and the London weekly newspapers, and this gave him

same ship with her, and to have her on one's mind and in one's way the whole time, is more than I bargained for. Captain Jenness should have told us; though I suppose he thought that if she could stand it, we might. There's that point of

with a light?" Mr. Hicks asked

unham, with the com

a lady passenger on board, did you?" His poor disagreeable little face was l

Hicks's face, but his feet, with an effect of being, upon the whole, disappointed not to find them cloven. He added, to

n never saw her till yesterday. She's an up-country school-marm, and she came down here with her grandfather yesterday. She's going out t

u that sketch-block of mine to put in yo

I've g

t. Did you see M

was at C

on, he walked away to another part of the ship. As soon as he was beyond ear-shot, Staniford again spoke: "Dunham, this girl is plainly one of those case

ellow, Staniford

placed in a position which could be made very painful to her. It seems to me it's our part to prevent it from being so. I doubt if she finds i

h glistening eyes. "I had some wild notion of the k

y; it must be a negative benevolence for the most part; but it can be done. The first thing is to cow that nuisance yonder. Pumping the cabin-boy! The little sot! Look here, Dunham; it's s

already. I confess I wish you had

m good, confound h

if her name hadn't been Blood

rname is. Besides, Blood is very fr

ty, isn't she?"

so common as the pretty girl of our nation. Her beauty is

is friend, further, "that she

ow," said Stanifo

efore he asked, "What do yo

ha, pr

impos

ultivated Yankees and the raw material seem hardly of the same race. Where the Puritanism has gone out of the people in spots, there's the rankest growth of all sorts of crazy heresies, and the old scriptural nomenclature has given place

aptain Jenness, who now issued from the cabin gangway, and came toward them w

us indirectness of a man not used to diplom

llent. "But you don't mean to say," Dunham added, "that you're going to g

nt the same things at sea that you do on shore; your appetite chops round into a different quarter

erhaps more in authority than Dunham. "While we're well we only s

better speak to you about him. I found him yesterday evening at my agents', with his father. He's just been on a spree, a regular two weeks' tear, and the old gentleman didn't know what to do with him, on shore, any longer. He thought he'd send him to sea a voyage, and see what would come of it, and he plead hard with me to take him. I didn't want to take him, but he worked away at me till I couldn't say no. I argued in my own mind th

for no others, like Artemus Ward's destitute inebriate. Did

child might be some bother on the voyage, but thinks I, I'm used to children, and I guess I can manage. Bless your soul! when I first see her on the wharf yesterday, it most knocked me down! I never believed she was half so tall, nor half so good-looking." Staniford smiled at this expression of the captain's despair, but the captain did not smile. "Why, she was as pretty as a bird. Well, there I was. It was no time then to back out. The old man wouldn't understood. Besides, there was the young lad

," assente

world over, and a gentleman's a gentleman." The captain looked significantly at the young men. "As for that other fellow," added

enness, my friend and I had been talking this little matter over just before you came up. Will

endowed the subject with seriousness, and conveyed a sentiment of grave and noble sincerity. The captain held out a hand to each o