ll, your betrothed, to dinner this, evening. I should not mind
letting you make her acquaintance. If you happen to be curious to see
her, don't make any engagements at the club, and come home punctually."

"Really!" exclaimed my aunt with a laugh, and without giving me time to
answer: "from the way you put it, one might think you were talking of
some doll that you intended to offer Andre for his birthday!"

"What the deuce do you mean by that, my dear?" asked the captain in his
imperturbable way.

"I mean," said my aunt, "that this little acquaintance which you wish
they should make with each other before you marry them, seems to me a
very necessary preliminary."

"Pooh! They've still a good year before them! Besides, this little
matter has nothing to do with romance." Then turning to me he continued;
"Well, if that suits you for to-day, I have given you notice."

"Capital!" added my aunt. "Well, Andre! How does it suit you?"

"Why, aunt," I said, laughing in my turn at their little dispute; "I
think my uncle may rely equally with you upon the pleasure it will give
me."

"All right, that's settled!" continued my aunt in an inimitable tone of
hilarity; "at seven o'clock punctually, my dear nephew, you will come
and fall in love."

My uncle took no more notice of this last ironical shaft than of the
rest, but occupied himself with selecting a cigar, remarking that what
he had were too dry. My aunt availed herself of the opportunity of
continuing her conversation with me.

"Between you and me," she said, "I may tell you that you are not much to
be pitied, for she is a charming girl, and you would really lose a good
deal by not making her acquaintance."

"I was only waiting for my uncle to decide the question."

"You must at any rate be grateful to him for letting you meet _by
chance_ before your wedding-day," she continued.

"Oh, dear! one might think I wanted to marry them at a minute's notice!"
said my uncle at these words. "Just like a woman's exaggerations!
Perhaps you would have liked me to have introduced her to him before my
last voyage, when she was a lass of fourteen, thin, awkward, and
gawkish, as you all are at that age."

"Thanks; why don't you say monkeys while you are about it?" replied my
aunt with a curtsey.

But my uncle intended to make a speech of it, and continued:

"Who would have left in his mind the disagreeable recollection of a
small, flat, angular creature, with arms like flutes,