els, Allan, on your expressing such a
desire to go to sea."

"Oh, father!" was all I could say.

"They inform me now," continued he, reading from the broker's
communication, "that all the arrangements have been completed for your
sailing in the Silver Queen on Saturday next, which will be to-morrow
week, your premium as a first-class apprentice having been paid by my
London agents, by whom also your outfit has been ordered; and your
uniform, or `sea toggery' as sailors call it, will be down here next
Monday or Tuesday for you to try on."

"Oh, father!" I cried again, in wondering delight at his having settled
everything so promptly without my knowing even that he had acceded to my
wishes. "Why, you seem to have decided the question long ago, while you
were asking me only just now if I would not prefer any other profession
to the sea!"

"Because, my son," he replied affectionately, "I know that boys, like
girls, frequently change their minds, and I was anxious that you should
make no mistake in such a vital matter as that of your life's calling;
for, even at the last hour, if you had told me you preferred being a
clergyman or a doctor or a lawyer to going to sea, I would cheerfully
have sacrificed the money I have paid to the brokers and for your
outfit. Aye, and I would willingly do it now, for your mother and I
would be only too glad of your remaining with our other chicks at home."

"And why won't you, Allan?" pleaded mother, throwing her arms round me
and hugging me to her convulsively. "It is such a fearful life that of
a sailor, amid all the storms and perils of the deep."

"Don't press the boy," interposed father before I could answer mother,
whose fond embrace and tearful face almost made me feel inclined to
reconsider my decision. "It is best for him to make a free choice, and
that his heart should be in his future profession."

"But, Robert--" rejoined mother, but half convinced of this truth when
the fact of her boy going to be a sailor was concerned.

"My dear," said father gently, interrupting her in his quiet way and
drawing her arm within his again, "remember, that God is the God of the
sea as well as of the land, and will watch over our boy, our youngest,
our Benjamin, there, as he has done here!"

Father's voice trembled and almost broke as he said this; and it seemed
to me at the moment that I was an awful brute to cause such pain to
those whom I loved, and who loved me so well.

But, e