escape from the rippling mouth. "Your father's dearest wish has always
been to see Lucien enter the Church, and although Juliet is our adopted
child, we do not intend to interfere with the wishes of her uncle the
abbot, who has offered to place her in the convent of Saint Shutemup.
As to you taking Lucien's place,"--here the mouth expanded
considerably--"ah! Mariano, you are too foolish, too giddy; better
fitted to be a sailor or soldier I should think--"

"How!" interrupted Mariano. "Do you then estimate the profession of the
soldier and sailor so low, that you think only foolish and giddy fellows
are fit for it?"

"Not so, child; but it is a school which is eminently fitted to teach
respect and obedience to foolish and giddy fellows who are pert to their
grandmothers."

"Ah! how unfair," exclaimed Mariano, with assumed solemnity; "I give you
good advice, with gravity equal to that of any priest, and yet you call
me pert. Grandmother, you are ungrateful as well as unjust. Have I not
been good to you all my life?"

"You have, my child," said the little old lady; "very good--also rather
troublesome, especially in the way of talking nonsense, and I'm sorry to
find that although your goodness continues, your troublesomeness does
not cease!"

"Well, well," replied the youth, with a sprightly toss of the head,
"Lucien and I shall enjoy at least a few weeks more of our old life on
the blue sea before he takes to musty books and I to the stool of the
clerk. Ah, why did you allow father to give us a good education? How
much more enjoyable it would have been to have lived the free life of a
fisherman--or of that pig," he said, pointing to one which had just
strayed into the garden and lain down to roll in the earth--"what happy
ignorance or ignorant happiness; what concentrated enjoyment of the
present, what perfect oblivion as to the past, what obvious disregard of
the future--"

"Ay," interrupted the little old lady, "what blissful ignorance of the
deeds of ancient heroes, of the noble achievements of great and good
men, of the adventures of Marco Polo, and Magellan, and Vasco de Gama,
over whose voyages you have so often and so fondly pored."

"I see, grandmother, that it is useless to argue with you. Let us turn
to a graver subject. Tell me, what am I to bring you from Malta? As
this is in very truth to be our last voyage, I must bring you something
grand, something costly.--Ah, here comes Juliet to help us