love to be
marins!"

"Enough, good Francis; the family of Barberie is as earthy as a fox. Go
and notify the idle rogues in my kitchen, that their master is at hand;
and remember, that there is no necessity for speaking of all the wonders
we have seen on the great deep. Captain Ludlow, we will now join my
dutiful niece, with as little fracas as possible."

Ludlow eagerly accepted the invitation, and instantly followed the
dogmatical and seemingly unmoved Alderman towards the dwelling. As the
lawn was crossed, they involuntarily paused, a moment, to look in at the
open windows of the pavilion.

La belle Barberie had ornamented la Cour des Fees, with a portion of that
national taste, which she inherited from her father. The heavy
magnificence that distinguished the reign of Louis XIV. had scarcely
descended to one of the middling rank of Monsieur de Barberie, who had
consequently brought with him to the place of his exile, merely those
tasteful usages which appear almost exclusively the property of the people
from whom he had sprung, without the encumbrance and cost of the more
pretending fashions of the period. These usages had become blended with
the more domestic and comfortable habits of English, or what is nearly the
same thing, of American life--an union which, when it is found, perhaps
produces the most just and happy medium of the useful and the agreeable.
Alida was seated by a small table of mahogany, deeply absorbed in the
contents of a little volume that lay before her. By her side stood a
tea-service, the cups and the vessels of which were of the diminutive size
then used, though exquisitely wrought, and of the most beautiful material.
Her dress was a negligee suited to her years; and her whole figure
breathed that air of comfort, mingled with grace, which seems to be the
proper quality of the sex, and which renders the privacy of an elegant
woman so attractive and peculiar. Her mind was intent on the book, and the
little silver urn hissed at her elbow, apparently unheeded.

"This is the picture I have loved to draw," half-whispered Ludlow, "when
gales and storms have kept me on the deck, throughout many a dreary and
tempestuous night! When body and mind have been impatient of fatigue, this
is the repose I have most coveted, and for which I have even dared to
hope!"

"The China trade will come to something, in time and you are an excellent
judge of comfort, Master Ludlow;" returned the Alderman. "That girl