otally eclipsed by the Sou'wester hat), she looked so charming, that the
captain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both his legs
again. She was very simply dressed, with no other ornament than an
autumnal flower in her bosom. She wore neither hat nor bonnet, but
merely a scarf or kerchief, folded squarely back over the head, to keep
the sun off,--according to a fashion that may be sometimes seen in the
more genial parts of England as well as of Italy, and which is probably
the first fashion of head-dress that came into the world when grasses and
leaves went out.

"In my country," said the captain, rising to give her his chair, and
dexterously sliding it close to another chair on which the young
fisherman must necessarily establish himself,--"in my country we should
call Devonshire beauty first-rate!"

Whenever a frank manner is offensive, it is because it is strained or
feigned; for there may be quite as much intolerable affectation in
plainness as in mincing nicety. All that the captain said and did was
honestly according to his nature; and his nature was open nature and good
nature; therefore, when he paid this little compliment, and expressed
with a sparkle or two of his knowing eye, "I see how it is, and nothing
could be better," he had established a delicate confidence on that
subject with the family.

"I was saying to your worthy mother," said the captain to the young man,
after again introducing himself by name and occupation,--"I was saying to
your mother (and you're very like her) that it didn't signify where I was
born, except that I was raised on question-asking ground, where the
babies as soon as ever they come into the world, inquire of their
mothers, 'Neow, how old may _you_ be, and wa'at air you a goin' to name
me?'--which is a fact." Here he slapped his leg. "Such being the case,
I may be excused for asking you if your name's Alfred?"

"Yes, sir, my name is Alfred," returned the young man.

"I am not a conjurer," pursued the captain, "and don't think me so, or I
shall right soon undeceive you. Likewise don't think, if you please,
though I _do_ come from that country of the babies, that I am asking
questions for question-asking's sake, for I am not. Somebody belonging
to you went to sea?"

"My elder brother, Hugh," returned the young man. He said it in an
altered and lower voice, and glanced at his mother, who raised her hands
hurriedly, and put them together across her black gow