three requisites for
happiness,--perfect happiness,--and could they have been satisfied, in
all probability she would have come as near to the wished-for state as
poor humanity on this earth ever does come to that beatific condition.
She certainly thought so, and with characteristic boldness had not
refrained from communicating her thoughts to her father.

The astonishing feature of the situation was that he was inclined to
agree with her. There was nothing astonishing in itself in his
agreement with her, for he usually did agree with her, but in that her
conditions were really his own. For it is rare, blessedly so, that two
people feel that they require the same thing to complete the joy of
life, and when they parallel on three points 't is most remarkable.
Even two lovers require each other--very different things, I am sure.
Stop! I am not so sure about the third proviso with the colonel. I
say the third, because Miss Wilton put it number three, though perhaps
it was like a woman's postscript, which somehow suggests the paraphrase
of a familiar bit of Scripture,--the last, not will be, but should be,
first!

Here are the requisites. One: The flag floating gracefully from the
peak of the spanker gaff above them, in the light air of the sunny
afternoon, should be the stars and stripes, instead of the red cross of
St. George! Two: The prow of the ship should be turned to the wooded
shores of Virginia, and the Old Dominion should be her destination
instead of the chalk cliffs of England! Three: that a certain
handsome, fair, blue-eyed, gallant sailor, who answered to the name of
John Seymour, should be by her side instead of another, even though
that other were one who had once saved her life, and to whose care and
kindness and forethought she was much indebted. Her present attendant
was certainly a gentleman; and to an unprejudiced eye--which hers
certainly was not--quite as handsome and distinguished and gallant as
was his favored rival, and boasting one advantage over the other in
that he bore a titled name--not such a desideratum among American girls
at that time, however, as it was afterwards destined to become; and in
a girl of the stamp of Miss Katharine Wilton, possibly no advantage at
all.

But, could the heart of that fair damsel be known, all talk of
advantage or disadvantage, or this or that compensating factor, was
absolutely idle! She was not a girl who did things by halves; and the
feeling whi