“Pooh, pooh! Frank, don’t tell me,” the captain said. “Damme, sir, do you think I have not heard it over and over again? Of course you have only been there once; you have found a pretty, grateful girl, and you have given her a kiss, as was only right and natural that you should do under the circumstances. There is no harm in these first meetings—there never is. A man seldom goes into these things with his eyes open—very few men are scoundrels enough deliberately to plan these things—but he calls again and again. He still finds her very pretty, and her gratitude gradually grows into a warmer feeling; he has kissed her once, and of course it would be absurd for her to make any objection when he does it the second time; and so these things go on, until the man, as I have said, either makes a fool of himself, and marries her, or makes a rascal of himself, and does worse. I know, Frank, that such an idea is at present as far from your head as it is from mine; but as a man of the world, I ask you, ask yourself, if you were to go there often—sometimes, of course, finding her father away, and having a half hour’s chat with her all to yourself—would you not end by feeling that you had very much better have left the matter alone? Honestly, now?” “Well, uncle, honestly, now you put it in that light, very likely I should. But I think you know me well enough to feel——” “Quite so, Frank,” the captain said, taking his hand; “quite so. I believe you to be an honourable, upright young fellow. I believe you to be more free than young men in general from this sort of thing, but for that very reason more likely to make a fool of yourself. Now you have my opinion of the affair. If you are wise you will take my advice, and not go there again.” As Frank Maynard walked home that night, thinking over what had happened, he took his cigar from his mouth, and said to himself, “By Jove, uncle is right; she is a wonderfully pretty winning little thing; and if I were to go there often, and find, as he says, her father out, I should be very likely to get spoony, and make in the end, as he prophesies, either a fool or a rascal of myself; so I will take his advice, and go there no more. Prevention is better than cure.” CHAPTER X. PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.