on and let me at least learn from her own lips whether or not she
cares for me?"

"I think I can furnish all the information you wish in that line,"
returned the captain, laying a kindly hand on the young man's shoulder,
"for hardly an hour ago she told me--as she has many times before--that
she loved no one else in the wide world half so dearly as her father."

"Well, sir, I am glad of it, since you won't let me speak yet," said Percy
with a rueful sort of smile. "But--please don't blame me for it--but I
can't feel satisfied to be forbidden to speak a word, considering how very
far apart our homes are, and that we may not meet again for years--if
ever--and that--Chester Dinsmore, who is, I can see plainly enough, over
head and ears in love with her--will be near her all the time and have
every chance to cut me out."

"No," said the captain, "I shall give him no chance either. I fully intend
keeping my little girl to myself--as I have already told you--for at least
six or eight years to come."

"And you have no objection to me personally, sir?"

"None whatever; in fact, from all I have seen and heard I am inclined to
think you a fine fellow; almost equal to my own boy, Max," Captain Raymond
said with a smile: "and if my daughter were of the right age, and quite
ready and willing to leave her father, I should have but one objection to
your suit--that you would take her so far away from me."

"Possibly I might not, sir, should there be an opening for me near where
you reside. I think the Bible says it is the man who is to leave father
and mother and cleave to his wife."

"True, my young friend," returned the captain; "but the time I have set is
too far away to make it worth our while to consider that question at
present."

With that the interview closed, and the two parted, the captain to be
confronted a few minutes later by Chester Dinsmore, with a like request to
that just denied to Percy.

"No, no, Chester," he said, "it is not to be thought of; Lucilla is
entirely too young to leave her father's fostering care and take up the
duties and trials of married life. I cannot consent to your saying a word
to her on the subject for years to come."

"You have no objection to me personally, I trust, sir?" returned the young
man, looking chagrined and mortified.

"None whatever," Captain Raymond hastened to say. "I have just given the
same answer to another suitor, and there is one consideration which
inclines me to