"Yes, Miss Barbara is in. Walk up, Captain." "What could be more propitious? Poets are not always in the right. Isn't my love true love, and doesn't it run smooth?" Wait awhile, my Captain! Perhaps Shakspeare was not so much in error, after all. Barbara's eyes plainly spoke her pleasure at seeing him. Adjoining the drawing-room was a little boudoir filled with sunshine and flowers. Into that she led him. They sat down on one of those snug contrivances for a _tête-à-tête_, formed like the capital letter S. A fragrance as of spring was shed through the room from the open door of a conservatory, and a canary-bird near by was tuning his voice for a song. "Barbara, do you know it is a whole fortnight that we have known each other?" She looked up at him inquiringly, for this was the third time he had called her by her first name. He continued,-- "Barbara, I had a pleasant interview with your father this morning, and what do you suppose I said to him?" "Said it was a fine day, most like," returned Barbara, intent on spreading out the leaves of a half-blown rose. "No, I said not a word about the weather. I asked him if he would have any objection to me for a son-in-law." "And what did he reply?" asked Barbara, after a pause, during which her little heart beat wildly. "He told me I could settle it all with you." "Indeed!" said Barbara. "But I never had any genius for settlements. I always hated business." "But this is a matter of pleasure, not of business," urged the Captain; and then coming round to her side, and falling on one knee, he took her unreluctant little hand, put it to his lips, and said, "May I not have it for my own?" Before she could reply, approaching steps were heard, and a youth of some nineteen years, wearing the coarse pea-jacket, red baize shirt, and glazed hat of a sailor, made his appearance. "Culpepper!" exclaimed Barbara, while the Captain resumed his seat,--"is it you?" "Yes," replied the youth. "Sister, I have a few words to say to this man privately. Please leave the room." Master Culpepper was one of those nondescripts in social zoölogy, classed by some philosophers as "cubs," and by others as "hobbledehoys,"--"not a man, nor a boy, but a hobbledehoy." At school he had been set down as a hopeless blockhead, and Barbara had severely tasked her patience, trying to insinuate into his brains the little knowledge of the ordinary branches of education which he possessed. Consequently, though she was two years his junior, she had been accustomed to regard herself as several years his senior, and to talk to him as to the inferior he really was in everything but brute strength. The cub's strong points, morally considered, were his family pride and his hatred of "Abolitionism": in these he bade fair to surpass even the maternal proficiency. "Captain Penrose," said Barbara, "this is my brother Culpepper. Now, Cully, go and play in the stable, that's a good boy."