er a very fine vessel, and how much I should like
to go to sea in her. The next day he appeared at our house in great
glee, and told my grandmother and Aunt Bretta that he had come to wish
them good-bye, that his father had bound him apprentice to the owners of
the schooner, and that he was to go to sea in her that very voyage. I
was sorry to part with him, and I could not help envying him for being
able to start at once to see the world. When he was gone, I could talk
of nothing else but of what Charley was going to see, and of what he was
going to do; and I never ceased trying to persuade my grandmother and
aunt to let me go and be a sailor also. Poor things, I little thought
of the grief I was causing them.

"Willand, my dear laddie, ye ken that your father, and your grandfather,
and two uncles were all sailors, and were lost at sea,--indeed, I may
well say that such has been the hard lot of all the males of our line,--
then why should ye wish without reason or necessity to go and do the
same, and break your old grandmother's heart, who loves ye far better
than her own life's blood," said the kind old lady, taking me in her
arms and pressing me to her bosom. "Be content to stay at home, laddie,
and make her happy."

"Oh, that ye will, Willand dear," chimed in Aunt Bretta; "we'll get a
wee shoppie for ye, and may be ye'll become a great merchant, or we'll
just rent a croft up the country here, and ye shall keep cows, and
sheep, and fowls, and ye shall plough, and sow, and reap, and be happy
as the day is long. Won't that be the best life for Willand, grannie?
It's what he is just fitted for, and there isn't another like it."

I shook my head. All these pictures of rural felicity or of mercantile
grandeur had no charms for me. I had set my heart on being a rover, and
seeing all parts of the world, and I believe that had I been offered a
lucrative post under Government with nothing to do, without a moment's
hesitation I should have rejected it, lest it might have prevented me
from carrying my project into execution. Still for some time I did not
like to say anything more on the subject, and the kind creatures began
to hope that I had given up my wishes to their remonstrances. Had they
from the first taught me the important lessons of self-denial and
obedience, they might have found that I was willing to do so; but I had
no idea of sacrificing my own wishes to those of others, and I still
held firmly to my re