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It happened that the owner of the ship, Mr. Effingham, was on board. He was going to Rio de Janeiro, partly on account of his health, but chiefly to look after and secure a large amount of property belonging to the firm of which he was senior partner, and which was jeopardised by certain disturbances in Brazil. Like all passengers on board a ship, he could find but little or nothing to do to pass away the time, and being a married man and a father, his sympathies and good feelings were powerfully excited and strongly attracted towards this “waif of the sea,” their new passenger. The boy, on the other hand, to a very handsome face added a mild and amiable disposition, and, like all New-England boys, an education vastly superior to boys of the same age and standing in Great Britain. George’s parents were respectable in some sort–that is to say, their moral and religious characters were beyond reproach, but their social reputation was very bad indeed–they were poor. It has been said by an English traveller, that in all other countries pleasure, rank, literary renown, etc. are the objects upon which men place their affections; but, in the United States, the pursuit of wealth is an imperious duty; and, of course, if a man fails in this duty, his good name as a member of society soon becomes most deplorably out at elbows.

Before the end of the voyage, young Allerton had made himself master of Mr. Effingham’s affections, and being of that happy age when all places are nearly alike, provided they are comfortable, he readily consented to remain with his protector, and was accordingly regularly inducted into the old gentleman’s family as a member of it. He was the playmate of Mr. Effingham’s daughter, six years younger than himself, and the companion of her rambles abroad. The old man wished to take him into his counting-room as a clerk, but the boy’s predilection for the sea frustrated that scheme, and the senior, after some reflection and persuasion, yielded to it. Accordingly Master George, having served a noviciate as apprentice, stepped over the intermediate state of “able seaman,” and became second mate, then first mate, and lastly captain, or more properly master. During the whole of this time, he was employed in the West India trade, in which most of the Bristol merchants are engaged more extensively than in any other. He never came home from a voyage without bringing some curiosity to little Julia,–as he continued to call her, even after she had attained her eighteenth year,–and never failed writing frequently to his parents, and sending them the whole or a greater part of his wages: a line of conduct that raised him incredibly in the old gentleman’s favor, and made a deep impression upon the young mind of Julia.

While George was passing through the different grades of his profession, the young lady was advancing through the different grades of physical and intellectual beauty and improvement. The “pretty child” that played in her father’s parlor, the “elegant girl of the boarding-school, had now become a most lovely and accomplished young lady. She had lost her mother when young, and the whole force of her filial affection had centred upon her father. Brought up in unreserved intimacy with her father’s new protege, she always regarded him as a brother, or rather as her equal. She always anxiously awaited his return from sea, though she did not, in her more youthful days, exactly understand why. When her beauty brought wealth and rank to her feet, she could not avoid comparing their possessors with the nautical absentee.

“Sir Reginald Bentley is not half so handsome a man as George; Lord Dormington, although he has travelled over all Europe, and has besides a seat in the House of Lords, is not, after all, half so well informed as George; the Honorable Adolphus Fitz William dresses very expensively and fashionably, but his clothes do not fit him so well as George’s; and as for that wine-swilling brute, Squire Foxley, I would not be condemned to marry such a man for the world.” So she dismissed them all, “cum multis aliis.”