University of Virginia Library

JULIA GRAYSON,
OR THE
SAILOR IN LOVE.

BY D. P. THOMPSON,
Author of “May Martin,” “Green Mountain Boys,” “Locke
Amsden,” “Shaker Lovers,” &c. &c.

The traveller, in making the tour of New England, as he
journeys along through that clustering range of smiling villages,
which, like a starry belt of the heavens, stretches round her
peopled coasts, extending back many miles inland one way, and
in an almost unbroken chain the other, from the Penobscot to
the Hudson, will often find his attention attracted by some beautiful
residence, standing, perhaps, aloof from all others on a conspicuous
elevation, or other eligible spot, and so far outshining
them in the air of wealth, taste, and comfort, that seems to surround
it, as generally to excite the curious desire to know something
of the character and fortune of the owner, or, at least, of
the constructer of so imposing an establishment. And scarcely
less often will he find, on enquiry, that this is, or has been, the
residence of a retired sea-captain, who, having made a fortune
by professional services and trade on the perilous deep, has come
here to spend and enjoy it, with the remainder of his days, in
the comparatively tranquil scenes of village life. Well, who is
better entitled to enjoy the fortune he has made, both on account
of the toils, responsibilities, and dangers he has passed through
in accumulating it, and the honest deserts of his character, than
is generally the sea-captain? For we do not believe, and we
speak not without a somewhat extended acquaintance—we do

not believe that a worthier class of men can be found—a class
of men, who possess as a body, more of all the substantial virtues—who
are more uninfluenced in their acts by the sordid calculations
of self, or who are more alive to the calls of humanity,
when they take their stand in society, than that of the masters
of all the higher grades of our mercantile vessels. Nor is it very
strange that they are so; they have been schooled to a life of
important trusts and responsibilities, in which strict integrity and
correct habits are made the test of success; while the scenes of
trial and danger they so frequently experience has tended to
teach them their dependence on Providence, and make them
feel for the wants and sufferings of their fellow-men.

We once had the pleasure of forming an acquaintance with a
gentleman of this class, whom we found in the enviable situation
above described, and whose romantic and singularly good
fortunes—seemingly the natural result, in his situation, of a
trust-worthy and benevolent character, would well warrant an
enlargement into a volume, instead of the brief and simple
narration, in which we propose to give them:—

Captain Loton was emphatically the architect of his own
fortunes. Losing his last remaining parent at the age of sixteen,
and being thus thrown entirely on his own resources, he
left his native place, one of the interior towns of Massachusetts,
and, without a friend to recommend or introduce him, without
money, except a few dollars earned for the premeditated journey,
and without any other than a common-school education,
confidently set out on foot and alone for Boston, resolved on engaging
in a sea-faring life. He was not long after reaching that
place, in finding a situation in a merchant vessel, and he unhesitatingly
entered as a raw hand, at the wages the owner was
pleased to offer him. His first spare dollar was laid out for a
work on navigation, and so intently did he apply himself to
study while becoming acquainted with the practical part of his
profession, and so rapidly did he win the confidence of all by
whom he was known, that at eighteen he was a mate, and at
nineteen the master of a vessel trading between Boston and Havana,
at which last mentioned place, his good conduct, together
with his prepossessing exterior and youthfulness, attracted
much notice, and gained him the appellation of the “handsome
and trusty Yankee boy captain.”

One day, in the early part of his career as commander, as he
was walking the streets of that great emporium of the West Indies,
from which his vessel was then on the point of sailing,
on her homeward passage, he noticed a well-dressed female,
with a large work-basket in her hand, walking near him
and in the same direction. The circumstance did not at first
very particularly attract his attention; but perceiving after going
some distance, that she was still near, and making, as he
fancied, some effort to keep pace with him, he slackened his
speed, and finally turned round, and courteously addressing her,
asked if she was going far his way, naming the public house at
which he lodged. “She was—and, perhaps, should call—at
least, she had thought of calling at the very same house he had
mentioned,” she replied, in a soft tremulous tone, as she looked
up timidly on the inquirer, displaying a fair pale face, in which
the traces of subdued sorrow and suffering were sufficiently visible
to give eloquent effect to a countenance of great beauty and
sweetness.

Captain Loton was at once touched with pity by her manner
and appearance, and in a tone of kindness, rather than of gallantry,
he immediately offered his services in carrying her basket.
To this she silently assented, and he took the basket from
her hand, little dreaming what to his future destiny would be
the consequence of the act of that moment. He could not but
notice, however, that as she delivered him her burden, she seemed
greatly agitated, and manifested a hesitation and reluctance
which seemed strangely at variance with her first ready assent.
But attributing the whole to maiden timidity, or the fear that
something wrong would be asked of her in return, he walked on
in unsuspecting silence. After proceeding a short distance in
this manner, the lady observed to him that she was under the
necessity of making a brief call at the house then at hand, and
if he was disposed to continue his kindness, he might take her
basket along with him, and deposit it in the hall at his hotel.
And throwing an anxious and troubled look on the other and
his charge, she immediately disappeared. Proceeding directly
to his hotel, Captain Loton deposited the basket in the hall, as
requested, and repaired to the dinner-table, where the guests
were already assembled; and where he soon related his adventure
with the fair unknown, jovially remarking, that when she

called for her basket he thought he should attend her home, and
try to improve his acquaintance. The landlord, better acquainted
with the manners of the town, and recalling the impositions
that had there sometimes been practised on strangers by wanton
females, in palming off their offspring, smiled, and began to rally
him on the possibility that the basket in question might contain
something for which the owner might not be likely to call
for very soon, and advised him to examine it. At that moment
the cries of a child were heard issuing from the basket, and a
roar of laughter burst from the gentlemen at the table at his expense.
Though greatly surprised, and not a little chagrined, at
this sudden proof of what his host had just suggested, Captain
Loton yet bore the laugh and merry jokes of the company with
unruffled good humor, and rising from the table, he coolly
proceeded to the basket, opened it, and found it contained, surely
enough, an infant—a very pretty and healthy looking female
infant—in whose features he could clearly trace the lineaments
of that pale and sorrowful face, which had so won upon his
heart, and which, one hour before, he supposed belonged to one
as excellent in virtue as she was lovely in person. And he
could not now feel to condemn her, dupe as he knew he would
be considered, of her artifice, or bring himself to believe that
this seemingly unnatural act was committed by her, except under
some peculiar exigency. But however that might be, he
knew he was now fairly saddled with a responsibility which he
little coveted. Still he had too much independence of mind and
benevolence of heart to suffer the ridicule of his acquaintance
to drive him to neglect his charge, as much as he was at loss
what to do with it.

“Oh, don't look so serious about it, Loton,” said one of his
acquaintances. “The city provides for such cases; send it to
the alms-house.”

“Never!” replied the other, “if money will procure it a better
situation.”

And in pursuance of his benevolent resolution, he made immediate
search for a nurse; and he was soon fortunate enough
to find a good one, with whom he made a satisfactory arrangement
to take the child to her house and keep it till she saw him
again. He then went on board his vessel, weighed anchor and
set sail for home.

Soon after his return to Boston, Captain Loton was promoted
to the command of an Indiaman, and made two successful voyages
to the east. But his bosom had been touched; and in spite
of all his endeavors to banish thoughts which his better judgment
told him he had little reason to cherish, the image of one
soft, speaking countenance continued to haunt him, and his
heart secretly yearned to resume an intercourse with that sunny
garden of the ocean, with which those truant thoughts were associated.
As will be anticipated, therefore, he conceived a distaste
to the East India voyages, and, yielding his post to another,
and accepting an offer he had received to take command of a
fine vessel fitting out for the West Indies, he was soon on his
way to the scene of his former adventure, which he reached after
an absence of nearly three years.

As soon as the duties connected with the landing of his vessel
would permit, Captain Loton went in search of his protege,
whom he found in the care of the same poor but worthy woman,
to whose trust the child was at first consigned, and to whose
faithfulness to that trust a sufficient witness was seen in the
neat and healthy appearance of the child herself, now grown
from the helpless and unconscious infant he left her, to an interesting
little prattler.

“She recalls to my mind more and more of her mother's
looks, every time I turn my eye upon her face,” observed the
captain with a half sigh, after musingly gazing at the object of
his remark, during a moment when she rested from her childish
pranks, and turned towards him with a look of wondering
innocence. “But what do you call her?” he added, addressing
himself more directly to the woman.

“Mary.”

“Mary what?”

“Mary Loton, to be sure,” replied the woman, with a queer,
meaning expression.

“Why, you don't suppose this to be my child, except by its
coming into my possession by finding, as the lawyers say in
their writs, do you?” asked the captain in surprise.

“There are others that will have it so, at any rate,” answered
the woman.

“Well, I hope you have not believed them—and least of all,

so far as to prevent you from trying to discover the mother, as I
requested you to do?”

“No, I have not believed them; for I knew your character—
and I have taken much pains in endeavoring to find out the
mother.”

“And with what success?”

“Little or none. No inquiries have ever been made for the
child; and I think the mother, if not an irretrievably lost character,
must have left the island immediately—perhaps with some
one of the many families that come to winter here from England
or the American coast—perhaps she was herself a foreigner, and
come here with them.”

“Probably you are right; for an abandoned woman I will
never believe her.”

“I hope she was not, but whatever was the mother, her babe
has proved one of the sweetest of children, and has served to
supply in my affections, as far as any child not my own, could,
the place of the one I lost a few weeks before I took her. And
besides, sir, I should add, that since the death of my husband,
that happened the year after, as you may have heard, the liberal
pay you authorized me to draw on your trading-house, has been
a great help to me—and I hope you will allow me to still keep
your little Mary for you, many years longer.”

“Certainly, and with many thanks for the manner in which
you have discharged your duty to me and to humanity.”

During Captain Loton's stay in the city he almost daily visited
the child, and soon became so much attached to her, that he took
more pleasure than ever in recalling the incident, which gave
him, as he now hesitated not to call her, his adopted daughter.
During the following twelve years, the captain, once or oftener
in each year, returned to Havana, and always provided liberally
for the support and education of his charge. And although it
required, with his own expenses, nearly all his earnings, yet this
was done without any of that regret—that drawback of feeling
which too often attends ostensive benevolence, and makes charity
little less than an abomination in the sight of heaven. For
his heart was ever warm with generous impulses, and never
paused, while within the bounds of ordinary prudence, to call in

the aid of arithmetical calculation to measure its munificence,
and he continued to manifest towards the child of his voluntary
adoption, the affection and tenderness of a parent, and took a parent's
interest in her welfare. She had now arrived at the age
of fifteen—an age, which in that soft and quickening climate,
confers the maturity of womanhood, and more perfectly, perhaps,
than any other period, opens the blossom of female beauty.
And she was esteemed as possessing an uncommon share of that
more envied than enviable gift, unless united, as was happily the
case in the present instance, with good sense and intelligence.
Captain Loton, as may be supposed, was not a little proud at the
development of such qualities in one whom he had sacrificed
so much to rear. And such was his attachment, that the rumor
before mentioned, that she was his natural daughter, gave place
to another, that his must be other than parental affection—and
that he soon was to make her the partner of his life. This rumor
at length reached the ears of both, and on both it produced
nearly the same effect—that of aversion to the thought, at first,
of beginning to look upon each other in connection with so different
a relation from what they had accustomed themselves.
But it was beginning to start a new train of reflections in the
bosoms of each—they were beginning to ask themselves, `Why
not?' And though nothing on the subject had passed between
them, yet it is hard telling what might have been the result, but
for the happening of the unexpected incident, which brings us
to the denouement of our little romance in real life.

The voyage of Captain Loton, to which this portion of the
tale refers, was commenced about the time of the setting in of
the northern winter, in a new ship, with remarkably fine accommodations,
which, having become a part owner, he had contrived
to have called the `Mary,' in compliment to his fair protege, and
not without the half-formed secret expectation, perhaps, that the
latter might grace her fine rooms on her homeward passage, under
a new and more endearing title. On his arrival at Havana,
he found the city unusually gay and lively, on account of the
return of the wealthy from their summer tour to Bermuda on
the American coast, together with the influx of northern strangers,
resorting hither at this season, like birds of passage, to escape
the rigors of their frosty clime, during the dreary months of
winter. With the company thus brought together, came the usual

rounds of popular amusements; among which the one of the
greatest resort by the higher classes, at this time, was the theatre,
in which a popular English actor, then on a short sojourn in
the Island, was performing. And to witness one of his representations,
Captain Loton, one evening, was induced to listen to
the solicitations of a friend belonging to the city, and attend the
theatre with him.

“Here, Loton,” said the friend, after they had been seated a
few moments, and were glancing over the fashionable assemblage,
while waiting for the rising of the curtain, “do you see
that lady, in the sky-colored dress, in the box nearly opposite
there, by the column?”

“The lady that is now rising to adjust her shawl?—yes—I do
now—and a finely turned figure—very—she can boast—don't
you call it so?” replied the other, glancing with interest on the
object thus pointed out to him.

“Ay, and a no less finely formed set of features, which, a moment
since, were turned full upon us; but as I jogged you she
dropped her veil over them.”

“Who is she?”

“A young widow Grayson, recently from the interior of the
Island, as an acquaintance, famous for finding out the history of
new comers, informed me a night or two ago, after pointing her
out to me; and her history is a very singular one.”

“Indeed—how so?”

“Why, having become acquainted with a young man of our
class—a trader of this city—she privately married him,—which
soon coming to the ears of her wealthy and aristocratic father,
he disinherited her, though an only child, and drove her from
home. She then came here, and joined her husband, who, dying
soon after, left her, in consequence of the fraud of a partner,
wholly destitute, and she has been a dependant on some family
in Bermuda, who picked her up here, and in pity took her home
with them to that Island, where she has remained in exile ever
since—a dozen years or more—till a few months ago, when she
was recalled to take possession of her fortune, left her by the
merest accident, on the sudden death of her father. His will
disinheriting her, and giving his property to collateral relations,
remained unaltered, it appeared, till last summer; when getting
offended with one branch of the legatees, he determined to cut

them short. So sending for his attorney, he directed him to write
a new will, which was done, and the instrument made ready for
his signature, his daughter being still left out. The old will was
then destroyed; and a servant was sent out for witnesses to
attest the signing of the new one. But one of those whom the
old gentleman had selected for the purpose, had been suddenly
called away, and it was concluded to defer the execution of the
will till the next morning. That night the heartless testator
died of an apoplexy, leaving his daughter, that lady yonder,
sole heir to one of the finest estates in Cuba.”

The curtain now rose, and though Captain Loton for a while
often found his eyes straying towards the fair creature whose
history he had just heard, and about whose appearance, as little
as he could see of her, there was a certain something, that created
in his bosom a sort of undefined feeling of interest which he
could not account for himself, yet as the play went on, his attention
gradually became interested in the development of the
plot, and at length the object of these reveries passed wholly
from his mind, and was not recalled for the remainder of the
evening.

The incident, however, though lost sight of through the last
part of the performance, and the busy morning with him which
followed, was brought fully to his mind during the day by another,
as little expected as the first, and more calculated to excite
his interest and curiosity. As he was retiring from his dinner-table,
a black boy put a billet into his hands and immediately
disappeared. Perceiving the superscription to be in a lady's
hand, and one that was wholly unknown to him, it was with
considerable surprise that he opened the billet, and with much
more that he read the neatly penned but brief contents:—

“Will Captain Loton accept an invitation to sup, at 6 o'clock
this evening, at No. 20 — Street. By so doing he will afford
a lady the desired opportunity of communicating with him on a
subject of great interest to her, and not wholly without interest,
she trusts, to him. Julia G.”

“Julia G.” he repeated to himself, after a second time reading
the note—“Julia G—Grayson, the lady at the theatre, last night,
—it will answer for that name—yet what can she know of me,

or what want of me? It can't be, and still—but I will go and
solve the mystery, come what may of it.”

A little reflection, however, tended not a little to abate the romantic
interest with which he was first inclined to invest the
incident, and caused him to waver in his determination. Neither
the house designated, or any family occupying it, were at all
known to him; and so singular were all the circumstances attending
this invitation, that he at one time inclined to believe it
a hoax—at another he suspected it to be the artifice of some
designing person, to lead him into difficulty, and would pay no
attention to it. But curiosity, and a feeling something like a
presentiment that the visit was to terminate happily, at length
prevailed; and at the appointed hour he set forth, and proceeded,
in a state of doubt and agitation very unusual with his calm
temperament, to search out the house in question. In this he
soon succeeded; and finding the designated number attached to
a dwelling house, the appearance of which satisfied him of the
respectability at least of its occupants, he approached, and with a
beating heart, rang for admittance. A servant appeared, and
ushering him through a saloon to the entrance of a large and
elegantly furnished parlor, motioned him in, and immediately
retired. Captain Loton now advanced a step or two within the
threshhold;—but perceiving no one in the room, and thinking he
heard some one in an apartment opening into it, he paused, and
was hesitating whether to take a seat here, or pass through to
the next room; when a light female figure suddenly darted from
behind the door ajar on his left; and throwing her arms around
his neck, gave him a lively smack on his cheek, and then springing
back a step, and looking up with an air of roguish triumph,
burst out into a merry peal of laughter.

“Mary!” exclaimed the Captain, throwing a look of the utmost
surprise, though not of displeasure upon his adopted daughter—“this,
then, is a plot of your hatching, is it, you incorrigible
young rogue?”

“Well, admitting it to be so,” laughingly retorted the vivacious
girl, “you richly deserve it at my hands, sir, for your neglect.
You have not been to see me for almost a whole week.”

“I have been up to my ears in business, child.”

“And yet my consistent father found time to attend the theatre

last night, and to come here this evening, it seems even on the
invitation of a stranger.”

“Stranger!—then you did not write that billet after all?—but
who is that stranger, Mary, whose house you appear to be so
much at home in?”

“A new acquaintance.”

“Ay—but who?”

“That is the secret,” archly replied the girl, “but all in good
time—another scene of the plot, as you call it, remains to be developed.
Excuse me a moment now, if you please, sir, and you
shall soon know the whole,” she added, skipping out of the room,
and leaving the Captain with a bosom fluttering with excited
expectation to await her return.

In a few moments the door was thrown open, and she re-appeared
arm in arm with a lady with the bloom of sixteen added
to the ripened countenance of thirty, the rare beauty of which
was now charmingly heightened by the sweet embarrassment
she was trying to conceal.

“Father,” said the happy girl, in a voice tremulous with grateful
emotion, “this is Mrs. Grayson, and my own mother.”

Captain Loton advanced, and warmly grasping the proffered
hand of the fair lady, led her to a seat.

“A more grateful surprise,” said the Captain, after the parties
had measurably recovered their composure, “a more grateful
surprise, Mrs. Grayson, could hardly have been devised for me,
even in fancy.”

“Many thanks,” replied the lady, with feeling, “many thanks
to you, Captain Loton, for this kind assurance in the present, and
still more for your noble conduct in affairs of the past, of which
I have much to say, but with your leave will defer it to a less
agitating moment.”

The ice of restraint having now been broken, a pleasant conversation
ensued, which soon turned so far on the subject of their
present meeting, as to unfold to the Captain the circumstances
which had brought it about. It appeared that Mrs. Grayson,
though she had been several weeks in the city, had never been
able to learn any thing of her daughter till the night before.
She had identified Captain Loton as soon as he entered the theatre,
and his name being mentioned by a lady, a stranger to her,
who happened to be in the same box, joined in the conversation,

and named the circumstance which she had heard, of an American
Sea-Captain of that name having adopted as a daugher, a
child who was picked up by him in the street, and who was then
living, she believed, with a family in her part of the city. This
led to such further inquiries and answers as made Mrs. Grayson
acquainted without revealing her own interest in the subject, with
the exact situation of the place where the girl whom she doubted
not to be her child, could be found, and ended in a promise
of an introduction to the family. And so promptly did she avail
herself of these advantages the next morning, that before noon,
the reunion of mother and daughter was so happily effected, and
with such confidence in each other, that the latter went home
with the former, where the present surprise and meeting was
planned and executed in the manner we have described.

Supper was now announced, and Mrs. Grayson led the way
to the table, which was loaded with the rarest of delicacies, and
which, with a nice appreciation of the circumstances, she had
caused to be set for the three only, and never was social board
surrounded by hearts possessing a livelier interest in each other,
or more capable of imparting and receiving happiness among
themselves, than those here assembled on the evening so memorable
in their respective destinies.

After the repast was over, they returned to the parlor; when
the daughter, after exchanging a look of intelligence with the
mother, left the room.

“Now, Captain Loton,” said Mrs. G., “I will ask your indulgence
while I revert to that dark spot in my checkered life, when
a poor, broken-hearted creature, I met you in the streets of this
city, and though I expect not to justify my conduct, yet I hope
to offer circumstances, which you will consider some extenuation
of an act, which you must have looked upon as both base and
unnatural.”

“No, lady,” interposed the Captain, “not so—I believed you
driven to the course you took by misfortunes, that should awaken
sympathy rather than censure.”

“You judged generously, if not truly, sir, and I shall, with
more confidence, give you my little history.”

She then proceeded to relate her story as Loton had already
heard it, with the addition that as soon as it was discovered by
her landlord, that her husband had died without leaving any

means for her future support, or even for paying the small debt
already contracted, he harshly ordered her to leave the house,
and seek new quarters; and by way of justifying himself in his
cruel course, he assailed her character, giving out that though a
mother she had never been a wife. This she soon found it was
easier to deny than to make the contrary appear, by any evidence,
that would command belief. The clergyman by whom
she was privately married, was not a permanent resident, and
had left the island for parts unknown to her, and the only witness
of the marriage had died of the yellow fever a few months
after that event, and her own assertions gaining no credit
against the studiously circulated insinuations of her slanderer.
She was now turned into the streets in perfect destitution; and
finding every door shut against her among the few acquaintances
she had formed in the city, despair took possession of her
mind, and she prayed for death to end her sorrows. In this forlorn
and distracted condition she wandered from street to street
with her babe in her arms, till utter exhaustion compelled her
to seek a place for rest, which she soon found in a corner of a
veranda of a large warehouse. Here, unobserved, among the
bales of goods which screened her from public view, she hushed
her babe to sleep, and for a bed deposited it in the basket
containing all that was left unsold of her wardrobe. As she
was thus employed, and while she was darkly revolving in her
mind the fearful alternatives of suicide, or a life of beggary and
disgrace, her eye fell on Captain Loton, standing on the opposite
side of the street, when she heard a gentleman near her
pointing out by name to another, as an American sea-captain of
many fine qualities; and the sudden thought struck her that
she would throw herself on his mercy. But as she approached
him her courage failed her, and she suffered him to pass away
without attracting his notice. It was, however, as she thought,
her last hope, and she timidly followed him, till he turned and
took her burden from her hands. She could not even then open
to him her wishes, or tell him what the basket contained. And
knowing that the truth might the next moment be revealed, and
fearing it would bring her a humiliating repulse, she resolved
in her desperation, to throw her child on his benevolence, and
hie herself away to some lone spot to die. Accordingly, with a
hastily breathed prayer for her child's safety, and with some directions
to him, she scarcely knew what, she passed hurriedly
into an alley, and fell down in a swoon at the door of a benevolent
lady, by whom she was taken into the house, revived, pitied
retained in the family, and in a few days invited to go with
them to their home in Bermuda, where she became a permanent
resident, and where she once, and once only had the unspeakable
pleasure to learn accidentally, that her child survived and
had been adopted by him, in whose hands she left it.

“This is all I can offer by way of palliation,” said the lady as
she concluded her story.

“And what more or better could be offered, dear lady,” responded
Captain Loton, in a frank and cordial manner; “for
me it is enough—abundantly enough to confirm the charitable
view of the act which I have ever contended it should receive.”

“I am deeply grateful to you, sir,” rejoined the other with
emotion, “for a construction which few, perhaps, under the circumstances,
would have put on my motives and conduct; and
for this part of my obligations, I feel that I could never sufficiently
reward you. But for all the rest, I am happy in having it in
my power to remunerate you. And now I offer you a pecuniary
compensation for all your sacrifices, expenses, and care of my
daughter, in such sum as you shall name.”

“As to pecuniary reward,” observed the captain, “I have never
expected any—nor can I think of accepting any. The act of
taking charge of and adopting your daughter, was, on my part,
wholly voluntary; and I have been amply repaid for my protection
in the affectionate conduct and interesting society of her
whom I have thus far protected, but whom I will now relinquish
to a mother's better right.”

“I may not deserve the boon, sir,” said the lady, “but for one
purpose I will accept it. You decline receiving all pecuniary
reward—but should a remuneration of another kind be desired
by you, and the object be not averse, you have now empowered
me to award it.”

“You overpower me, fair lady by your offers, and especially
by your last flattering suggestion; but have you considered well
and concluded the most wisely, in view of the respective positions,
which we three have stood, and now stand towards each
other?”

“Another choice, certainly, if equally acceptable, might be
happier for us all,” replied the other with encrimosning cheek,
“but can you expect me, unsought to give you a further option?”

At that moment of sweet embarrassment, they looked up and
beheld Mary standing in the doorway, where she had become
an involuntary listener to the latter part of the discourse, and
she was on the point of retreating, but on perceiving she was noticed,
she came forward, and blushing even more deeply than
her mother, she took a hand of each of the others, and joined
them together.

“It is better thus,” she said, and darted from the room.

Little now remains to be told but what the reader's imagination
will readily supply. The fine apartments of the good ship
Mary, on her homeward passage, though she was much delayed
by the round of fetes and discharge of responsibilities, in which
her master had unexpectedly became a principal actor, were indeed
graced by the presence of not only one, but two of the
most lovely of females—one with the still unchanged title of
daughter, and the other with the still more endearing title of
wife, from whom and the deserving son of the ocean, who had
thus nobly won her hand and fortune, are now springing up one
of the finest families in New England.