She coloured, smiled, and looked grave all in a breath. "A ship is not a church," said she, almost demurely. "No," I answered, "but a parson's a parson wherever he is--he carries with him the same appetite, the same clothes, the same powers, no matter whither his steps conduct him." She shook her head smiling, but her blush had faded, nor could her smile disguise a look of alarm in her eyes. "My darling," said I, "surely if there should be a clergyman on board, you will not object to his marrying us? It would end all our troubles, anxieties, misgivings--thrust Lady Amelia out of the question altogether, save us from a tedious spell of waiting ashore." "But the objections which hold good on shore hold good here," said she, with her face averted. "No, I can't see it," said I, talking so noisily out of the enthusiasm the notion had raised in me that she looked round to say "Hush!" and then turned her head again. "There must be a difference," said I, sobering my voice, "between the marriage ceremony as performed on sea and on shore. The burial service is different, and you will find the other is so too. There is too much horizon at sea, too much distance to talk of consent. Guardians and patents are too far off. As to banns--who's going to say 'no' on board a vessel?" "I cannot imagine that it would be a proper wedding," said she, shaking her head. "Do you mean in the sense of its being valid, my sweet?" "Yes," she whispered. "But you don't see that a parson's a parson everywhere. Whom God hath joined--" The steward entered the saloon at that moment. I called to him and said politely, "Have you many passengers, steward?" "Ay, sir, too many," he answered. "The steerage is pretty nigh chock-ablock." "Saloon passengers, I mean?" "Every berth's hoccupied, sir." "What sort of people are they, do you know? Any swells amongst them?" "That, depends how they're viewed," he answered, with a cautious look round and a slow smile; "if by themselves, they're all swells; if by others--why!" "I thought perhaps that you might have had something in the Colonial bishopric way." "No, sir, there's nothen in that way aboard. Plenty as needs it I dessay. The language of some of them steerage chaps is something to turn the black hairs of a monkey white. Talk of the vulgarity of sailors!" The glances of this steward were dry and shrewd, and his smile slow and knowing; I chose therefore to ask him no more questions. But then, substantially, he had told me what I wanted to gather, and secretly I felt as much mortified and disappointed as though for days past I had been thinking of nothing else than finding a parson on board ship at sea and being married to Grace by him.