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346 Wales, who shall have sense and spirit enough to refuse the discredit and discomfort of a state of alienation from the parental house and heart.

There is no clear division or visible organisation of political parties among us now. On some accounts it would be better if there were: but we have thus the advantage of fair play for the domestic relations of the royal family. There is now no political clique trying to get possession of the future king. We see no disposition to make a popular idol of the heir. We feel that there is no rival, even in men’s imaginations, to the actual sovereign;—no excuse for the slightest movement of jealousy in her, or for mortification and resentment in her son. It is impossible to say how much the Princess of Wales may not do towards either preserving or breaking up the family confidence on which the whole of the sovereign’s happiness, and much of that of the people, will henceforth depend. She may not be able to do everything; but she may do much, and she certainly might mar everything. Even if there were that tendency to jealousy which is common in the temper of rulers, mischief might be precluded by a frank family demeanour, by the encouragement to confidence between parent and son which a young wife can afford, and by the respectful and tender consideration of the Queen’s wishes and convenience which it is always held a grace in a daughter-in-law to manifest. From all that we have yet heard of the Princess Alexandra, we may anticipate that she will be an example of the high prudence of goodness. If so, she is likely to be an illustration,—unhappily but too new,—of the possibility that the lot of a Princess of Wales may be as happy as it is brilliant. May her life so grow before the eyes of the rising generation, and so stand in the picture-roll of History!

2em

aunt Calista was one of the prettiest of all little fairy-like women. As a girl her beauty must have been something wonderfully distracting. She was once the belle of a famous and quaint old sea-town, full of fortunes made in foreign trade, prize-money, and kinds of traffic, thought honourable enough some years ago, but now held in such reprobation, that I prefer not to mention them.

My Aunt was very little. When I was ten years old, I was the biggest. Well I might be, for a man could span her waist with his two hands, and she was more like a marvellous doll, or a stray fairy, than a mortal woman. Her feet and ankles were past all comprehension for littleness and elegance. Perhaps she did not wear nice shoes and stockings, and maybe she did not hold up her black brocade daintily on the slightest provocation! Ah! but her hands; how small, and white, and delicate, they were, with rosy-tipped, tapering fingers. She looked all the more petite and wonderful in her delicate prettiness, for always dressing in black, which brought out her pale, lily-like beauty, and blonde hair with great distinctness. Her deep blue eyes seemed to look through things and people. All this made me a little in awe of Aunt Calista, though I loved her, with the romantic, reverential love of boyhood, as if she were a lovely princess, enchanted, or otherwise.

A childless widow, my Aunt Calista had lived with us since I could remember. She was older than my mother; but no one could have told her age from her looks, for her singular beauty seemed to have in it no element of decay. We lived inland among the hills, and all I knew of the ocean was from my books of geography, and the pictures and voyages in Aunt Calista’s rooms, and Robinson Crusoe. But I dreamed much of the sea, built mimic ships, and waited with impatience until I should be old enough to run away like the aforesaid Robinson, who has, perhaps, done more to help Britannia to rule the waves, than all her Drakes and Nelsons.

I forget,—there was another source of information, better than all the rest. My Aunt Calista had been born in sight of the sea. She had seen the great ships sail in and out of the harbour of her native town. She had picked up beautiful shells and pebbles on the beach, and sometimes she helped me to sail my little squadrons on our duck-pond, and told me many a sea story she had heard or read.

“Aunt Calista,” said I, one day, when we were sitting under the willows by the water-side, watching my last achievement in naval architecture, as it danced over the billows—the billows of the duck-pond—“were you ever on the great blue sea, with only the sky and clouds above you, and the water all round, out of sight of land—nothing but the ship, in the middle of the sea?”

A shadow passed over her pale and lovely face, as she said, with a soft tenderness:

“Yes, dear, I have been at sea where the ship was the only human thing in sight, and the centre of the great circle of the horizon, where the blue sky and blue ocean mingle on every side.”

“Oh, how grand!” I exclaimed, with my boyish enthusiasm. “Do, dearest aunt, tell me all about your voyage?”

She did not answer for a moment, and I wondered what could be the matter with my ever-cheerful Aunt Calista. But the sadness passed away, and she said: − 	“Yes, I will tell you all about it. Your grandfather was a merchant, and owned many ships. He sent them to the West Indies, the East Indies, and sometimes to China. I loved the sea and the ships. My father used to allow me to go on board with him, when they were about to sail, or had come in from long voyages. I sometimes took such little presents on board as sailors like, and they said I would give them a lucky voyage. They did not forget me, and brought me many a nice present from beyond the seas.

“One day we visited a new ship, and found a new captain, whom I had never seen before. I thought him very handsome, but young for such a trust; but I found that he was good and honourable. He had been in the navy. A great mis fortune to his family had made it necessary for him to leave the service, and accept the higher pay of a merchantman. After one or two voyages we became acquainted, and he came to love me better than all the world.