“Dear papa, what are you about?” she cried, flinging her arms about the old veteran’s neck, and trying, at the same moment, to twitch the paper out of his hand.

“Avast heavin’! my girl.  The old commodore is not to be robbed so easily of his prize.”

“Indeed, you must give the portfolio to me!” said Juliet, her eyes full of tears at finding her secret discovered.

“Indeed, indeed, I shall do no such thing, you saucy little minx!  So, sit still whilst the father reads.”

“But that—­that is not worth reading.”

“I dare say you are right, Miss Juliet,” said the old maid, sarcastically.  “The rhymes of young ladies are seldom worth reading.  You had better mend your stockings, and mind your embroidery, than waste your time in such useless trash.”

“It does not take up much of my time, aunt.”

“How do you make it up out of your little head, Julee?” said the Captain.  “Come and sit upon my knee, and tell the father all about it.  I am sure I could sooner board a French man-of-war than tack two rhymes together.”

“I don’t know, papa,” said Juliet, laughing, and accepting the proffered seat.  “It comes into my head when it likes, and passes through my brain with the rapidity of lightning.  I find it without seeking, and often, when I seek it, I cannot find it.  The thing is a great mystery to myself; but the possession of it makes me very happy.”

“Weak minds, I have often been told, are amused by trifles,” sneered Aunt Dorothy.

“Then I must be very weak, aunt, for I am easily amused.  Dear papa, give me that paper.”

“I must read it.”

“’Tis silly stuff.”

“Let me be the best judge of that.  Perhaps it contains something that I ought not to see?”

“Perhaps it does.  Oh, no,” she whispered in his ear; “but Aunt Dorothy will sneer so at it.”

The old man was too much pleased with his child to care for Aunt Dorothy.  He knew, of old, that her bark was worse than her bite; that she really loved both him and his daughter; but she had a queer way of showing it.  And unfolding the paper, he read aloud, to the great annoyance of the fair writer, the fragment of a ballad, of which, to do him justice, he understood not a single word; and had he called upon her to explain its meaning, she would, in all probability, have found it no easy task.

    LADY LILIAN.

    Alone in her tower, at the midnight hour,
        The lady Lilian sat;
        Like a spirit pale,
        In her silken veil,
      She watches the white clouds above her sail,
      And the flight of the drowsy bat.

    Is love the theme of her waking dream? 
        Her heart is gay and free;
        She loves the night,
        When the stars shine bright,
      And the moon falls in showers of silver light
      Through the stately forest tree.