The Red Eric | Page 3

would think you had not seen me for fifty
years at least," said the captain, holding his daughter at arm's-length, in
order the more satisfactorily to see her.

"It's a whole week, papa, since you last came to see me," replied the
little one, striving to get at her father's neck again, "and I'm sure it
seems to me like a hundred years at least."
As the child said this she threw her little arms round her father, and
kissed his large, weather-beaten visage all over--eyes, mouth, nose,
chin, whiskers, and, in fact, every attainable spot. She did it so
vigorously, too, that an observer would have been justified in expecting
that her soft, delicate cheeks would be lacerated by the rough contact;
but they were not. The result was a heightening of the colour, nothing
more. Having concluded this operation, she laid her cheek on the
captain's and endeavoured to clasp her hands at the back of his neck,
but this was no easy matter. The captain's neck was a remarkably thick
one, and the garments about that region were voluminous; however, by
dint of determination, she got the small fingers intertwined, and then
gave him a squeeze that ought to have choked him, but it didn't: many a
strong man had tried that in his day, and had failed signally.
"You'll stay a long time with me before you go away to sea again, won't
you, dear papa?" asked the child earnestly, after she had given up the
futile effort to strangle him.
"How like!" murmured the captain, as if to himself, and totally
unmindful of the question, while he parted the fair curls and kissed
Ailie's forehead.
"Like what, papa?"
"Like your mother--your beloved mother," replied the captain, in a low,
sad voice.
The child became instantly grave, and she looked up in her father's face
with an expression of awe, while he dropped his eyes on the floor.
Poor Alice had never known a mother's love. Her mother died when
she was a few weeks old, and she had been confided to the care of two
maiden aunts--excellent ladies, both of them; good beyond expression;
correct almost to a fault; but prim, starched, and extremely

self-possessed and judicious, so much so that they were injudicious
enough to repress some of the best impulses of their natures, under the
impression that a certain amount of dignified formality was essential to
good breeding and good morals in every relation of life.
Dear, good, starched Misses Dunning! if they had had their way, boys
would have played cricket and football with polite urbanity, and girls
would have kissed their playmates with gentle solemnity. They did
their best to subdue little Alice, but that was impossible. The child
would rush about the house at all unexpected and often inopportune
seasons, like a furiously insane kitten and she would disarrange their
collars too violently every evening when she bade them good-night.
Alice was intensely sympathetic. It was quite enough for her to see any
one in tears, to cause her to open up the flood-gates of her eyes and
weep--she knew not and she cared not why. She threw her arms round
her father's neck again, and hugged him, while bright tears trickled like
diamonds from her eyes. No diamonds are half so precious or so
difficult to obtain as tears of genuine sympathy!
"How would you like to go with me to the whale-fishery?" inquired
Captain Dunning, somewhat abruptly as he disengaged the child's arms
and set her on his knee.
The tears stopped in an instant, as Alice leaped, with the happy facility
of childhood, totally out of one idea and thoroughly into another.
"Oh, I should like it so much!"
"And how much is `so' much, Ailie?" inquired the captain.
Ailie pursed her mouth, and looked at her father earnestly, while she
seemed to struggle to give utterance to some fleeting idea.
"Think," she said quickly, "think something good as much as ever you
can. Have you thought?"
"Yes," answered the captain, smiling.

"Then," continued Ailie, "its twenty thousand million times as much as
that, and a great deal more!"
The laugh with which Captain Dunning received this curious
explanation of how much his little daughter wished to go with him to
the whale-fishery, was interrupted by the entrance of his sisters, whose
sense of propriety induced them to keep all visitors waiting at least a
quarter of an hour before they appeared, lest they should be charged
with unbecoming precipitancy.
"Here you are, lassies; how are ye?" cried the captain as he rose and
kissed each lady on the cheek heartily.
The sisters did not remonstrate. They knew that their brother was past
hope in this respect, and they loved him, so they suffered it meekly.
Having admitted that they