ing him. Adjoining the
drawing-room was a little boudoir filled with sunshine and flowers.
Into that she led him. They sat down on one of those snug contrivances
for a _tete-a-tete_, formed like the capital letter S. A fragrance as of
spring was shed through the room from the open door of a conservatory,
and a canary-bird near by was tuning his voice for a song.

"Barbara, do you know it is a whole fortnight that we have known each
other?"

She looked up at him inquiringly, for this was the third time he had
called her by her first name. He continued,--

"Barbara, I had a pleasant interview with your father this morning, and
what do you suppose I said to him?"

"Said it was a fine day, most like," returned Barbara, intent on
spreading out the leaves of a half-blown rose.

"No, I said not a word about the weather. I asked him if he would have
any objection to me for a son-in-law."

"And what did he reply?" asked Barbara, after a pause, during which her
little heart beat wildly.

"He told me I could settle it all with you."

"Indeed!" said Barbara. "But I never had any genius for settlements. I
always hated business."

"But this is a matter of pleasure, not of business," urged the Captain;
and then coming round to her side, and falling on one knee, he took her
unreluctant little hand, put it to his lips, and said, "May I not have
it for my own?"

Before she could reply, approaching steps were heard, and a youth of
some nineteen years, wearing the coarse pea-jacket, red baize shirt, and
glazed hat of a sailor, made his appearance.

"Culpepper!" exclaimed Barbara, while the Captain resumed his seat,--"is
it you?"

"Yes," replied the youth. "Sister, I have a few words to say to this man
privately. Please leave the room."

Master Culpepper was one of those nondescripts in social zoology,
classed by some philosophers as "cubs," and by others as
"hobbledehoys,"--"not a man, nor a boy, but a hobbledehoy." At school he
had been set down as a hopeless blockhead, and Barbara had severely
tasked her patience, trying to insinuate into his brains the little
knowledge of the ordinary branches of education which he possessed.
Consequently, though she was two years his junior, she had been
accustomed to regard herself as several years his senior, and to talk to
him as to the inferior he really was in everything but brute strength.
The cub's strong points, morally considered, were his family pride and
his hatred of "Abol