Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/162

 questioned bis daughter, she had ingenuously confessed that I was not indifferent to her. She acknowledged, with crimson blushes, that I had requested and obtained a lock of her hair. This Mr. Somerville told my father in confidence. He was not, therefore, at liberty to mention it to me; but it sufficiently accounts for his astonishment at my seeming indifference; for the two worthy parents had naturally concluded that it was a match.

Confounded and bewildered by my asseveration, my father knew not whose veracity to impeach; but, charitably concluding there was some mistake, or that I was, as heretofore, a fickle, thoughtless being, considered. himself bound in honour to communicate the substance of our conversation to Mr. Somerville; and the latter no sooner received it, than he placed the letter in Emily's hands—a very comfortable kind of avant-courier for a lover, after an absence from his mistress of full three years.

I arrived at the hall, bursting with impatience