of fancy, and took the altitude of every apple-tree and
well-pole in the neighborhood, and made my advances to _her_ upon the
principles of traverse sailing.

Nor was old Mr. Morton unconscious of the great alteration in his son's
behaviour while at home, so unlike any thing he had ever observed before
in him, and he saw the change with no small pain.

"The poor boy cannot have fallen in love," said the senior to himself;
"there is nothing more amiable than a copper-colored squaw, beyond Cape
Horn."

One Saturday evening, the old man, being comfortably installed in his
leather-cushioned arm-chair, with his pipe and pitcher of cider (for
merchants, forty years since, drank cider at a dollar the barrel,
instead of London particular Madeira at five dollars the gallon, and the
consequences were--no matter what), commenced the conversation:

"Ahem! well, Charles, my son, do you intend going to sea again, or would
you prefer commencing business ashore? You are now at the age when most
young men think of settling down for life. Let's see--you are
five-and-twenty, are you not?"

"Five-and-twenty next month, father."

"Aye, true; well, it's strange, now I can never recollect your age
without looking into the bible there. I recollect, now, it was so stormy
that we did not dare to carry you to the meeting-house, and so Parson
Fales christened you in this very room."

"I wish," said Charles, speaking with difficulty, "I wish, my dear sir,
to make one more voyage round the Cape as soon as possible, and then I
don't care if I never see a ship again."

"Well, that's strange enough; why, what have you seen in that part of
the world so very enticing?"

"Enticing, indeed!" said the young man, springing from his chair, and
hurrying across the room in agitation; "something that I must possess,
or die!"

"Why, what a plague--why, what's got into the boy?" said the old
gentleman, dashing down his pipe; "you haven't got be-devilled after
those island girls, like a young fellow that I knew from Boston, who got
so bewitched after the copper-skinned, amphibious jades, that his father
was finally obliged to locate him there, as a sort of agent."

"O! no, no, no! she is as white as my own mother, well born, well
educated, and a Protestant," said the son, hurrying his words upon each
other; for he felt that the ice was broken, and saw the old gentleman's
countenance lengthening fast; "oh, father, if you could but see her--if
you but k