‘It is I who should have said those words, Captain Norton. You disappointed me, and I have disappointed you. You raised in me a demon of a temper, which I should have been ashamed to manifest, which I am now most heartily ashamed even to recall. And you have been very patient with me, very good and very gentlemanly. Please forgive me, in your turn.’ And she placed her hand firmly and warmly into mine. ‘You are too kind,’ I stammered, confused beyond measure at this rapid change of manner in my guest. ‘I spoke thoughtlessly; but I see that I misjudged you. Only tell me now what you wish to be done, and I will execute it to the letter.’ ‘I don’t deserve that you should do anything, Captain Norton, but hate me for a rude and sulky wretch; but I am so heartily sorry to have annoyed you.’ ‘Let us forget all that,’ I responded, earnestly; ‘the annoyance was mutual, and I was the most to blame. Only tell me what to do in future, Margaret—I may call you Margaret, may I not, since we are cousins?—in order to make you happy, and then I shall feel that I am quite forgiven.’ ‘Treat me as a human being,’ she answered, gaily, ‘and not as an animal for sale. Don’t ask your brother officers to the house on my account, nor thrust me forward for their contemplation in any way. Look on me as what I am: a creature who may stand alone all her life, and be contented so to stand; to whom marriage is but a chance in the future; so great a chance indeed, and so undesired a certainty, that she does not even care to contemplate it nearer; to whom her friends, if they will be her true and honest friends, are more valuable than a score of admirers.’ ‘Whatever I have been, you shall have a true and honest friend in me henceforward, Margaret.’ ‘That’s right; so let us look upon our difference as settled, and make Janie’s heart glad by the beaming faces we take back with us. And now, let me hear your true opinion of my uncle’s present to me.’