of the colour, nothing
more. Having concluded this operation, she laid her cheek on the
captain's and endeavoured to clasp her hands at the back of his neck,
but this was no easy matter. The captain's neck was a remarkably thick
one, and the garments about that region were voluminous; however, by
dint of determination, she got the small fingers intertwined, and then
gave him a squeeze that ought to have choked him, but it didn't: many a
strong man had tried that in his day, and had failed signally.

"You'll stay a long time with me before you go away to sea again, won't
you, dear papa?" asked the child earnestly, after she had given up the
futile effort to strangle him.

"How like!" murmured the captain, as if to himself, and totally
unmindful of the question, while he parted the fair curls and kissed
Ailie's forehead.

"Like what, papa?"

"Like your mother--your beloved mother," replied the captain, in a low,
sad voice.

The child became instantly grave, and she looked up in her father's face
with an expression of awe, while he dropped his eyes on the floor.

Poor Alice had never known a mother's love. Her mother died when she
was a few weeks old, and she had been confided to the care of two maiden
aunts--excellent ladies, both of them; good beyond expression; correct
almost to a fault; but prim, starched, and extremely self-possessed and
judicious, so much so that they were injudicious enough to repress some
of the best impulses of their natures, under the impression that a
certain amount of dignified formality was essential to good breeding and
good morals in every relation of life.

Dear, good, starched Misses Dunning! if they had had their way, boys
would have played cricket and football with polite urbanity, and girls
would have kissed their playmates with gentle solemnity. They did their
best to subdue little Alice, but that was impossible. The child _would_
rush about the house at all unexpected and often inopportune seasons,
like a furiously insane kitten and she _would_ disarrange their collars
too violently every evening when she bade them good-night.

Alice was intensely sympathetic. It was quite enough for her to see any
one in tears, to cause her to open up the flood-gates of her eyes and
weep--she knew not and she cared not why. She threw her arms round her
father's neck again, and hugged him, while bright tears trickled like
diamonds from her eyes. No diamonds are half so precious or so