honorable, noble in you, Captain Ratlin, so promptly to
relinquish all connection with a calling, which though it affords
fortune and command, can never permit you self-respect."

"The ship will probably be despatched within these two weeks, and then I
will take any birth in legitimate commerce, where I may win an honorable
name and reputation."

"There is my hand on so honorable a resolution," said Miss huntington,
frankly, while a single tear of pleasure trembled in her clear, lustrous
eyes.

The young commander took the hand respectfully that waits extended to
him, but when he raised his eyes to her face and detected that tear, a
thought for a moment ran through his brain, a faint shadow of hope that
perhaps she loved him, or might at some future time do so, and bending
over the fair hand he held he pressed it gently to his lips. He was not
repulsed, nor chided, but she delicately rose and turned to her mother's
apartment.

How small a things will affect the whole tenor of a life time; trifles
lighter than straws are levers in the building up of destiny. Captain
Ratlin turned from that brief interview with a feeling he had never
before experienced. The idea that Miss Huntington really cared for him
beyond the ordinary interest, that the circumstances of their
acquaintances had caused, had not thus far been entertained by him; had
this been otherwise he would doubtless have differently interpreted many
agreeable tokens which she had granted him, and to which his mind now
went back eagerly to recall and consider under the new phase of feeling
which actuated him.

How else could he interpret that tear but as springing from a heart that
was full of kindly feeling towards him. It was a tell-tale drop of
crystal that glistened but one moment there. Could it have been fancy?
was it possible he could have been mistaken? The matter assumed an
aspect of intense importance it his estimation, and he paced the
apartment where she had left him alone, half in doubt, half hoping. In
one instant how different an aspect all things wore; life, its aims, the
persons he met at the door as he now passed out. Even the foliage seemed
to partake of the freshness of his spirit, and the world to become
rejuvenated and beautified in every aspect in which he could view it.

This was the bright tide of the picture which his imagination, aided by
that gaudy painter and fancy colorer, Hope, had conjured up before his
mind's eye, but the reve