decision admits of no appeal, I must acknowledge," replied her suitor.

"Then reason I have none, captain; and so pray let that suffice."

"But, Miss Huntington, surely—"

"Nay, captain," she said, at last, weary of his importunity, "you know well my feelings. Far be it from me to play for one moment the coquette's part. I thank you for the compliment you pay me by these assurances, but you are fully aware that I can never encourage a suit that finds no response in my heart. I trust that no word or act of mine has ever deceived you for one moment."

"No, Miss Huntington, you have ever been thus cold and impassive towards me, ever turning a deaf ear to my prayer. Why, why can you not love me?"

"Nay, captain, we will not enter into particulars; it is needless, it is worse than needless, and a matter that is exceedingly unpleasant to me. I must earnestly beg, sir, that you will not again refer to this subject under any circumstance."

"Your commands are law to me, Miss Huntington," answered the discomfited lover, as he rose from the seat he had occupied by her side, and turned partially away.

It was well he did so, for had she seen the demoniac expression of his countenance as he struggled to control the vehemence of his feelings, she would have feared that he might do either her or himself violence.

"May I not hope that years of fond attachment, years of continued assiduity, may yet outweigh your indifference, Miss Huntington?" he said earnestly.

"Indeed, indeed no. You do but pain me by this continuance of a subject that—Ah, mother!" she said, interrupting herself, "I have been looking at the captain's ship, yonder; is she not a noble craft? And how daintily she floats upon the waters?"

"A ship is always a beautiful sight, my child; and especially so when she bears the flag that we see flaunting gracefully from that vessel."

"When do you sail, captain?" asked Mrs. Huntington, who had just joined her daughter on the piazza, and did not observe the officer's confusion.

"The ship rides by a single anchor, madam, and only waits her commander," he replied, rather mechanically than otherwise, as he turned his glance seaward.

"So soon? I had hoped you were to favor us with a longer stay," said she mother.

The officer looked towards the daughter, as though he wished it had been her that had expressed such a desire. But she still gazed at the distant ship, and he saw no change in her handsome features.

"We officers are not masters of our own time, madam, and can rarely consult our own wishes as to a cruising ground; but I frankly own that it was something more than mere accident which brought me this time to Calcutta."

As he said this, his eyes again wandered towards her daughter's face, but it was still cold, impassive and beautiful as before, while she gazed on that distant sea. He paused for a moment more, almost trembling with suppressed emotions of disappointment, chagrin and anger, and seemed at a loss what to say further; he felt constrained, and wished that he might have seen the daughter for a moment more alone.

"Farewell is an unpleasant word to say, ladies," he said, at last, still controlling his feelings with a masterly effort. Then offerings a hand to the mother, he bowed respectfully and said "Good-by;" and to her, who now turned with evident feeling evinced in her lovely face at the idea of a long parting, he offered his hand, which was frankly pressed, while he said: "I carry away a heavy heart to sea with me, Miss Huntington; could it be weighed, it would overballast yonder ship."

"Farewell, captain; a happy and safe voyage to you," she answered, with assumed gaiety of tone; but there was no reply. He bowed low and hastened away, with a spirit of disappointment clouding his sun-burned features.

The view which might be had from the window commanded a continuous sight of the road that the young officer must traverse to reach the ship, and though she had treated him thus coldly, and had so decidedly declined his suit, yet here lingered some strange interest about him in her mind, as was evinced by her now repairing to the window, and sitting behind the broad shadow of its painted screen, where she watched his approach to she landing, near the city gates, and saw the sturdy boatmen dip their oars in regular time, propelling the boat with arrow-like speed to the ship's side, where its master hastened upon deck and disappeared, while the boat was hoisted to the quarter-davits.

Anon she saw the sheets fall from the ponderous yards, and sheeted home, the anchor gradually raised to her bow, the yards squared to bring her with her head to the sea, and then a clear white cloud of smoke burst from her bows as she gathered steerage-way, and a dull heavy report of distant ordinance boomed upon the ear of the listening girl, unanswered by a deep sigh from her own bosom—a sigh not for him who had just left her, but for some kindred association that his presence aroused.

The villa where we have introduced the reader was that of the late Edward Huntington, a successful English merchant, who had resided many years in India and had realized a fortune, which he had proposed to return to his native land to enjoy with his wife and only child. But death had stepped in to put an abrupt end to his hopes, and to render abortive all his well-arranged plans, some twelve months previous to the period of which we have spoken. Mrs. Huntington, the widow, had remained in Calcutta to settle up her husband's affairs, and this done, she determined to embark at once with her daughter for England, where her relatives, friends and early associations were all located.

Miss Huntington, as the reader may have gathered, was no coquette; her great beauty and real loveliness of character had challenged the admiration of many a rich grandee and many an eminent character among her own countrymen in this distant land. But no one had seemed to mate the least impression upon her heart; the gayest and wittiest found in her one quite their equal; the thoughtful and pathetic were equally at home by her side; but her heart, to them, seemed encased in iron, so cold and immovable it continued to all the assaults that gallantry made against its fastness, and yet no one who knew her really doubted the tenderness of her feelings and the sensibility of her heart.

Her beauty was quite matured—that is she must have numbered at least twenty years; but there was still a girlish loveliness, a childlike parity and sincerity in all she said and did, that showed the real freshness of her heart and innocence of her mind. Far too pure and good and gentle was she for him who had so earnestly sued for her hand, as we have seen. Beneath a gentlemanly exterior, that other, whom we have seen depart from her side under such peculiar circumstances, hid a spirit of petty meanness and violence of temper, a soul that hardly merited the name, and which made him enemies everywhere, friends nowhere.

Robert Bramble—for this was he, the same whom the reader has seen as a boy at home in Bramble Park—had not improved in spirit or manliness by advance in years. The declining pecuniary fortune of his father's house, to which we have before alluded, had led him early to seek employment in the navy, and by dint of influence and attention to his profession, he had gradually risen to the position in which we have found him, as a commander in her majesty's service on the India station. That he loved the widow's daughter was true—that is to say, as sincerely as he was capable of loving any one; but his soul was too selfish to entertain true love for another.

The same spirit that had led him to the petty oppressions and the ceaseless annoyances which he had exercised towards his younger brother in childhood, still actuated him, and there was not a gleam of that chivalric spirit which his profession usually inspires in those who adopt it as a calling, shining within the recesses of his breast. Entirely unlike Miss Huntington in every