A strange sight, this, for a lighthouse tower on
the coast of Maine! but so fair a one, that the old mariner could
not take his eyes from it.
"Might be Juliet!" he muttered to himself. "Juliet, when she was a
little un. 'Her beauty hangs upon the cheek o' Night,'--only it ain't,
so to say, exactly night,--'like a rich jewel in a nigger's ear.'
No! that ain't right. 'Nigger' ain't right, 'Ethiop's ear, 'that's
it! Though I should judge they were much the same thing, and they
more frekently wear 'em in their noses, them as I've seen in their
own country."
As he thus soliloquised, the little maiden reached the bottom of the
stairs in safety, and dropping the folds of the velvet about her,
made a quaint little courtesy, and said, "Here I am, Daddy Captain!
how do you like me, please?"
"Star Bright," replied Captain January, gazing fixedly at her, as
he slowly drew his pipe from his pocket and lighted it. "I like you
amazin'. _A_-mazin' I like you, my dear! but it is what you might
call surprisin', to leave a little maid in a blue pinafore, and to
come back and find a princess in gold and velvet. Yes, Pigeon Pie,
you might call it surprisin', and yet not be stretchin' a p'int."
"Am I _really_ like a princess?" said the child, clapping her hands,
and laughing with pleasure.
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