a took him by the arm, and said
earnestly--"Will you promise me, my dear George, that when she comes
back from this voyage, you will never take her on another?"

"Yes, dear sister," replied the captain, somewhat melted, "I promise
that."

Without another word Martha sat down and held out her arms to Ailie, who
incontinently rushed into them. Propriety fled for the nonce,
discomfited. Miss Martha's curls were disarranged beyond repair, and
Miss Martha's collar was crushed to such an extent that the very
laundress who had washed and starched and ironed it would have utterly
failed to recognise it. Miss Jane looked on at these improprieties in
perfect indifference--nay, when, after her sister had had enough, the
child was handed over to her, she submitted to the same violent
treatment without a murmur. For once Nature was allowed to have her
way, and all three had a good hearty satisfactory cry; in the midst of
which Captain Dunning left them, and, proceeding on board his ship,
hastened the preparations for his voyage to the Southern Seas.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE TEA-PARTY--ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF A MINOR KIND--GLYNN PROCTOR
GETS INTO TROUBLE.

On the evening of the day in which the foregoing scenes were enacted,
the Misses Dunning prepared a repast for their brother and one or two of
his officers, who were to spend the last evening in port there, and
discuss various important and unimportant matters in a sort of
semi-convivio-business way.

An event of this kind was always of the deepest interest and productive
of the most intense anxiety to the amiable though starched sisters;
first, because it was of rare occurrence; and second, because they were
never quite certain that it would pass without some unhappy accident,
such as the upsetting of a tea-cup or a kettle, or the scalding of the
cat, not to mention visitors' legs. They seemed to regard a tea-party
in the light of a firearm--a species of blunderbuss--a thing which, it
was to be hoped, would "go off well"; and, certainly, if loading the
table until it groaned had anything to do with the manner of its "going
off," there was every prospect of its doing so with pre-eminent success
upon that occasion.

But besides the anxieties inseparable from the details of the pending
festivities, the Misses Dunning were overwhelmed and weighed down with
additional duties consequent upon their brother's sudden and unexpected
determination. Little Ailie had to be go