I--I love your daughter, sir,--Miss Lucilla--and--and I hope you won't forbid me to tell her so." He drew a sigh of relief that at last the Rubicon was crossed--his desire and purpose made known; but a glance at the captain's grave and troubled face dashed his hopes to the ground.
A moment of silence followed, then Captain Raymond spoke in gentle, sympathetic tones.
"I am sorry, very sorry to disappoint you, my young friend; but I cannot grant your request.

Lucilla is but a child yet--a mere school-girl; and such I intend to keep her for some six years or more to come.

I have no objection to you more than to any other man, but cannot consent to allowing her to be approached on that subject until she reaches much more mature years." "And in the meantime somebody else will in all probability get ahead of me," sighed Percy.

"Oh, sir, can I not persuade you to revoke that decision and let me at least learn from her own lips whether or not she cares for me ?" "I think I can furnish all the information you wish in that line," returned the captain, laying a kindly hand on the young man's shoulder, "for hardly an hour ago she told me--as she has many times before--that she loved no one else in the wide world half so dearly as her father." "Well, sir, I am glad of it, since you won't let me speak yet," said Percy with a rueful sort of smile.

"But--please don't blame me for it--but I can't feel satisfied to be forbidden to speak a word, considering how very far apart our homes are, and that we may not meet again for years--if ever--and that--Chester Dinsmore, who is, I can see plainly enough, over head and ears in love with her--will be near her all the time and have every chance to cut me out." "No," said the captain, "I shall give him no chance either.