e
by nature uncommonly long, but the length to which they grew on hearing
this announcement was something preternaturally awful.

"Take Ailie to sea!" exclaimed Miss Martha Dunning, in horror.

"To fish for whales!" added Miss Jane Dunning, in consternation.

"Brother, you're mad!" they exclaimed together, after a breathless
pause; "and you'll do nothing of the kind," they added firmly.

Now, the manner in which the Misses Dunning received this intelligence
greatly relieved their eccentric brother. He had fully anticipated, and
very much dreaded, that they would at once burst into tears, and being a
tender-hearted man he knew that he could not resist that without a hard
struggle. A flood of woman's tears, he was wont to say, was the only
sort of salt water storm he hadn't the heart to face. But abrupt
opposition was a species of challenge which the captain always accepted
at once--off-hand. No human power could force him to any course of
action.

In this latter quality Captain Dunning was neither eccentric nor
singular.

"I'm sorry you don't like my proposal, my dear sisters," said he; "but
I'm resolved."

"You won't!" said Martha.

"You shan't!" cried Jane.

"I _will_!" replied the captain.

There was a pause here of considerable length, during which the captain
observed that Martha's nostrils began to twitch nervously. Jane,
observing the fact, became similarly affected. To the captain's
practised eye these symptoms were as good as a barometer. He knew that
the storm was coming, and took in all sail at once (mentally) to be
ready for it.

It came! Martha and Jane Dunning were for once driven from the shelter
of their wonted propriety--they burst simultaneously into tears, and
buried their respective faces in their respective pocket-handkerchiefs,
which were immaculately clean and had to be hastily unfolded for the
purpose.

"Now, now, my dear girls," cried the captain, starting up and patting
their shoulders, while poor little Ailie clasped her hands, sat down on
a footstool, looked up in their faces--or, rather, at the backs of the
hands which covered their faces--and wept quietly.

"It's very cruel, George--indeed it is," sobbed Martha; "you know how we
love her."

"Very true," remarked the obdurate captain; "but you _don't_ know how
_I_ love her, and how sad it makes me to see so little of her, and to
think that she may be learning to forget me--or, at least," added the
captain, correcti