noteworthy, the fisherman, the yachtsman whom no weather disconcerted,
no misadventure could provoke,--so good-tempered and so safe; ay, so
safe! for Tony never wanted to flirt with the young heiress, nor teach
her schoolboy brother to smoke a short pipe. He had neither the ambition
to push his fortune unfairly, nor to attach his junior to him by
unworthy means. And the sisters ran over his merits, and grew very
enthusiastic about traits in him which, by inference, they implied were
not the gifts of others nearer home.

"I wish, papa, you would ride over and see Mrs. Butler, and ask when
Tony is expected back again."

"Or if," added Mrs. Trafford--"or if we could get him back by writing,
and saying how much we want him."

"I know I 'll never venture on Soliman till Tony has had a hand on him."

"And those chestnuts mamma wants for the low phaeton,--who is to break
them now?" cried Bella.

"I only heard yesterday," said Sir Arthur, "that the 'Mermaid's' sails
were all cut up. Tony was going to make a schooner of her, it seems;
and there she is now, dismantled, and not one of us able to put her in
commission again."

"I declare it sounds absurd," broke in Lady Lyle, "but I fancy the
garden is beginning to look neglected already. Certainly I never saw
Mr. Graft there the whole morning; and he would not have dared to absent
himself if Tony were here."

"I 'd go over willingly and see his mother," said Sir Arthur; "but as
Tony did not confide to us his intended journey, but set off without a
word, it would have the appearance of a certain prying curiosity on my
part were I to ask after him, and when he is expected home again."

"Not if you were to say frankly that we wanted him, and could n't get
on without him, papa," said Alice. "I 'd have no shame in saying that
we are perfectly helpless without his skill, his courage, his ready wit,
and his good nature."

"Why not secure all those perfections beyond risk, Alice?" said Sir
Arthur, laughing.

"How so?--only tell me."

"Marry him."

"First of all, papa, he might not marry me; and, secondly, if he should,
it might not be the way to insure the perpetuity I covet. You know what
Swift says of the 'promising' Princes and the 'bad' Kings the world is
full of?"

"I protest," said Lady Lyle, haughtily, "I have a great regard for young
Butler; but it has never gone the length of making me desire him for a
son-in-law."

"Meanwhile, papa,--for we have quite time eno