“Do you think that I would suffer my niece to spend her time in such an improper manner?  But, indeed, brother, I wish you would speak to Juliet (for she does not mind me) on this subject.”

“On what subject—­writing love-letters?”

“No, sir:  something almost as bad.”

“Well—­out with it.”

“She has the folly to write verses.”

“Is that all?”

“All!  Only consider the scandal that it will bring upon me.  I shall be called a blue-stocking.”

“You!  I thought it was the author to whom persons gave that appellation.”

“True, Captain Whitmore; but, as I help to instruct the young lady, ill-natured people will say that I taught her to write.”

“Don’t fret yourself on that score, Dolly; it will not spoil your fortune, if they do.  But Juliet—­I am sorry that the child has taken such whimsies into her head; it may hinder her from getting a good husband.”

“Fie, Captain Whitmore!  Is that your only objection?”

“Be quiet, Dolly, there’s a good woman, and let me examine these papers.  If there is anything wrong about them, I will burn them, and forbid my pretty Julee to write such nonsense again.  I know that the dear girl loves her old dad, and will mind what I say.  How!—­what’s this?  God bless the darling!”

‘Lines addressed to my father during his absence at sea.’

The old man put on his spectacles, and read these outpourings of an affectionate heart with the tears in his eyes.  They possessed very little merit, as a poem; but the Captain thought them the sweetest lines he had ever read.

“Well, now, Dolly, is not that a pretty poem?  Who could have the heart to find fault with that, or criticise the dear child for her dutiful love to me?  I’ll not burn that.”  And the old tar slipped the precious document into his pocket, to be hoarded next his heart, and to be worn until death bade them part, within the enamelled case which contained the miniature of his Julee’s very pretty mother.

“It’s well enough,” said Miss Dorothy; “but I hate such romantic stuff.  It could have been written with more propriety in prose.”  And she added, in a malicious aside, loud enough to reach the ears of the fond father: 

“Now his vanity’s pleased with this nonsense, there will be no end to his admiration of Juliet’s verses.”

“Dorothy, don’t be envious of that of which you are incapable.”

“Me envious!  Of whom, pray?  A whining, half-grown chit, who, if she have anything worthy of commendation about her, first received it from me.  Envious, indeed!  Captain Whitmore, I am astonished at your impudence!”

What answer the Captain would have given to this was very doubtful, for his brow clouded up with the disrespectful manner in which Aunt Dorothy spoke of his child, had not that child herself appeared, and all the sunshine of the father’s heart burst forth at her presence.