80 MODERN CONSTANCY. 



you will live as long as I shall, if you will only stop drinking 

 vinegar to make yourself thin. I can't see why a pretty girl 

 should try to spoil her good looks. You are always sighing like a 

 broken bellows, and throwing down your eyes as if they had a 

 squinting fancy towards your nose. Why the deuce don't you 

 act out your own glad and happy nature ?" 



Frank Hartwell was a shrewd, sensible, warm-hearted sailor, 

 who had loved Fanny ever since she was a little teasing baby, 

 whose humors nobody could quiet so well as cousin Frank. He 

 had all the genial qualities belonging to his profession, with no 

 small share of its hearty roughness and honesty. He saw 

 clearly enough all Fanny's foibles, but he saw also many excel- 

 lent traits beneath the overlaying of this foolish affectation of 

 sentiment. He loved her dearly, and he knew that her affec- 

 tion for him had become so much a habitude of her very being 

 that she was utterly unconscious of its real strength. He 

 looked upon her frequent fits of romance as the safety-valves of 

 that curious machine, a heart, and he was certain all would go 

 right, as soon as her various experiments had been fairly tried. 



Fanny was provoked by his plainly expressed contempt of 

 her favorite studies, and pained by his ridicule of her sentimen- 

 tality ; yet some how or other, there was a lurking regard for 

 him in her nature, which made her tolerate all these things. 

 Besides, he was so often absent on the perilous duties of his 

 profession, that she could not cherish any other but kindly af- 

 fections for him. One thing was certain, all Fanny's attacks of 

 fancy fever occurred during Frank's absence, and, if they did 



