"Pray, ma'am, is it not generally thought that Julia will be very beautiful? Did you ever see any thing like the brilliancy of her colour?" "Yes, it is very bright," said the old lady, "a sign of health, I hope." "And as to her smile," proceeded Edmund, "I have always thought it the sweetest thing in nature! even in her nurse's arms I can remember being delighted with it; when the darling used to stretch out its little hands to come to me!" And he looked, as he spoke, into the full, uplifted, liquid eyes of his little, listening favourite, with a thrill of tenderness, but too prophetic of the future. "There! look how she blushes!" he continued, collecting the quantity of fair hair which hung around her neck, and playfully strewing it again over her shoulders. "I think her beautiful, of course, my dear," answered Mrs. Montgomery; "but I am partial, you know: and so indeed are you. You began to love her, I believe, on the very evening she was born! I shall never forget how carefully you supported the baby's head on your little arm as you sat on this very table, I think it was, and asked leave to kiss her." "And was my presumptuous request granted, ma'am?" asked Edmund, laughing, and drawing little Julia kindly towards him, as though he had some thought of repeating the presumption of which he spoke; but she now began to twist her head away, blush, and look half angry: for little girls of her age, though, as we before observed, too young to be bashful, are very apt to be furiously modest. "Certainly, my dear," replied Mrs. Montgomery: "you were but six years of age, you know, and poor Julia there, not an hour old at the time." Her voice here faltered, her tears began to flow again, and her head shook a little; an infirmity she was able to suppress, except when much moved. Julia, who knew the symptom well, stole her arms round her grandmamma's neck, and tried all the little coaxing ways which she had long found the most effectual on such occasions of mournful recollection. CHAPTER XXVII. "What tho' No chiefs were they; their hands were strong in fight: They were our rock in danger; in triumph, The mountain whence we spread our eagle wing!" Let those who are fond of dramatizing their ideas, picture to themselves the scene opening, and displaying the wardroom of the Erina; its centre occupied by a long breakfast-table, at which a number of the officers are already ranged. Our hero enters, and takes his seat among them for the first time, having joined but the night before, just as the ship was getting under way. Thus situated, he feels a very natural curiosity to observe what his new messmates are like. He looks around him accordingly; and every face being equally strange to him, he begins to amuse himself, by wondering at the manifold and ingenious contrivances of nature, to make such variety out of the old materials, of eyes, nose, and mouth.