the scene and hour.

"Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly
practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had almost
risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant influences
of nature."

"Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of
the brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you gets
up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce knows
how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an' has
no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the man
in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions as
fast as ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as
first mate of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a
seaman. When I sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar than
myself, I had no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry."

The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to
convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn.

"Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a
gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not
school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all."

"What was it, then?"

"It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't
object to poetry in _her_."