'But I intend,' continued Captain Jackman, 'to make you a sharer in the business of my detention, by telling you that the letter you hold is to ask you for the hand of your daughter Ada.' 'No, sir, never!' shouted the commander. 'Softly, commander. You do not seem to consider that we are truly in love, that she is over age, and----' 'And what, sir?' bawled Commander Conway. The captain smiled. 'Keep seated,' said the commander. He seated himself by the fire, and now the talk flowed. 'This is my only daughter, do you see,' said the silver-headed old man. 'I hope you do not mean to take her from me.' 'Every girl needs a father at the start, and a husband afterwards,' said Captain Jackman. 'This girl is too beautiful and noble in spirit to be allowed to languish on top of a cliff within sight of a single scene of the sea. Young women like pleasures--music, the dance, the theatre, the opera--they do not care for nothing but windmills and fishing-boats----' He was proceeding. 'Hold, sir!' shouted the commander. 'What portion of all this glory could you display to my daughter?' 'I will take her off a cliff to start with, commander, and anchor her close to the sights which are worth seeing.' 'What are your means? Can you support my daughter without obliging me to put my hand in my pocket?' 'I shall not call upon you for a bad sixpence,' answered Captain Jackman, with a lofty toss of his head. The commander stared hard at him, and breathed short, then burst forth-- 'But how do I know who you are? You get locked up in a cave with my daughter, fall in love with her inside of a fortnight, and propose for her hand. I am thunderstruck. Marriage is a slow and solemn thing--a contract that is not to be thundered through as though a hurricane of need blew astern of it. You have told us your parents are dead, and I have no doubt, sir, from the sample they have left in their offspring, that they were in the highest degree respectable; but they were strangers. I never contemplated a marriage of this sort. You may have relations my daughter may find extremely degrading to her.' 'You should not talk thus without knowing,' said Captain Jackman, starting on his chair, and looking very fiery and disdainful. 'It is not customary, I think, to sweep the circle of the relations of a lady whose hand we propose for, otherwise----' He coughed. 'What does that cough signify, sir?' 'Mr. Fortt!'