“A ship is always a beautiful sight, my child; and especially so when she bears the flag that we see flaunting gracefully from that vessel.”

“When do you sail, captain?” asked Mrs. Huntington, who had just joined her daughter on the piazza, and did not observe the officer’s confusion.

“The ship rides by a single anchor, madam, and only waits her commander,” he replied, rather mechanically than otherwise, as he turned his glance seaward.

“So soon?  I had hoped you were to favor us with a longer stay,” said she mother.

The officer looked towards the daughter, as though he wished it had been her that had expressed such a desire.  But she still gazed at the distant ship, and he saw no change in her handsome features.

“We officers are not masters of our own time, madam, and can rarely consult our own wishes as to a cruising ground; but I frankly own that it was something more than mere accident which brought me this time to Calcutta.”

As he said this, his eyes again wandered towards her daughter’s face, but it was still cold, impassive and beautiful as before, while she gazed on that distant sea.  He paused for a moment more, almost trembling with suppressed emotions of disappointment, chagrin and anger, and seemed at a loss what to say further; he felt constrained, and wished that he might have seen the daughter for a moment more alone.

“Farewell is an unpleasant word to say, ladies,” he said, at last, still controlling his feelings with a masterly effort.  Then offerings a hand to the mother, he bowed respectfully and said “Good-by;” and to her, who now turned with evident feeling evinced in her lovely face at the idea of a long parting, he offered his hand, which was frankly pressed, while he said:  “I carry away a heavy heart to sea with me, Miss Huntington; could it be weighed, it would overballast yonder ship.”

“Farewell, captain; a happy and safe voyage to you,” she answered, with assumed gaiety of tone; but there was no reply.  He bowed low and hastened away, with a spirit of disappointment clouding his sun-burned features.

The view which might he had from the window commanded a continuous sight of the road that the young officer must traverse to reach the ship, and though she had treated him thus coldly, and had so decidedly declined his suit, yet here lingered some strange interest about him in her mind, as was evinced by her now repairing to the window, and sitting behind the broad shadow of its painted screen, where she watched his approach to she landing, near the city gates, and saw the sturdy boatmen dip their oars in regular time, propelling the boat with arrow-like speed to the ship’s side, where its master hastened upon deck and disappeared, while the boat was hoisted to the quarter-davits.

Anon she saw the sheets fall from the ponderous yards, and sheeted home, the anchor gradually raised to her bow, the yards squared to bring her with her head to the sea, and then a clear white cloud of smoke burst from her bows as she gathered steerage-way, and a dull heavy report of distant ordinance boomed upon the ear of the listening girl, unanswered by a deep sigh from her own bosom—­a sigh not for him who had just left her, but for some kindred association that his presence aroused.