fairer portion in the most impartial manner;
young and old, pretty and plain, all came in for a due share of his
attentions. His sisters were quite vexed with him for not falling in
love with one of three or four of their especial friends. They had a
preference for a Julia Giffard; but should Jack fail to lose his heart
to Julia, or Julia decline bestowing hers on him, there were at least
three others of almost equal attractions and perfections, either of whom
they could love as a sister-in-law; and it would be so delightful, while
Jack was away, to have some one to whom they might talk about him, and
to whom he would write such delightful letters which they, of course,
would have the privilege of reading.

Then, some day, when he was a commander or post-captain, he would come
home, and marry, and settle down in a pretty little cottage near them,
and take to gardening, as many naval officers do, and be so happy. One
day they delicately broached the subject to Jack. He burst into a
hearty laugh.

"I fall in love with Julia Giffard!" he exclaimed. "My dear girls, what
a miserable fate you are suggesting for your friend. Suppose she were
to engage herself to me! Away I go for three or four years; back for
two months, and off again for a cruise of like duration as the first.
In the mean time she meets half-a-dozen more likely fellows than I am,
as far as money is concerned at all events, but cannot encourage them on
account of her fatal engagement to me; and perhaps, after all, I get
knocked on the head and never come home at all, while the best years of
her youth have gone by. No, no, girls; young naval officers who intend
to follow up their profession have no business to marry; that's my
opinion, and I intend to act on it."

Jack's sisters were disappointed, for they saw that he was in earnest,
and had sound sense on his side, still they were not inclined to give
in.

"Then why were you so anxious to get your two brother officers to come
here?" asked Lucy, with considerable _naivete_.

"Whew! was that running in your head, missie?" cried Jack. "There's no
use denying the fact."

What that fact was Jack did not say. Lucy blushed, and said no more
about Julia Giffard to her hard-hearted brother. Jack went on as usual,
making himself agreeable, to the best of his power, and no one would
have suspected who saw them together, that the pretty Julia had been
suggested to him as his future wife, least of all th