"She is the governor's niece," said Morton. "You may tell that to the marines," said Coffin; "I'll be shot if there's as much Spanish blood in her veins as would grease the point of a sail-needle." "They say so ashore," said Morton. "I don't care what they say; I'll believe my eyes before the best Spaniard among them." "Who knows," said Morton, "but that infernal soldier, that's buzzing about her, may one day be the husband of that sweet girl?" "There's no knowing," said Coffin, yawning; "but you and I, Charlie, can't marry all the pretty girls that are like to have fools for husbands." As this conversation went on, the mates had walked aft, and were close behind Isabella, who stood by the companion-way, while the governor, and his lady, who was not far behind him in corporeal dimensions, were accomplishing their descent into the lower regions. "That rascally soldier," said Morton, "wants nothing but a tail to make him a full-rigged monkey, and that lovely girl is about to be sacrificed to him." "Poor girl!" said Coffin; "it's bad enough to marry a sojer, any how; but to marry such a critter as that is going it a little too fine." Poor Isabella, who had heard and properly understood every syllable of their conversation, was exceedingly affected. She had heard a person, whose appearance and manners approached her _beau ideal_ of a gentleman, expressing, in warm and energetic language, the liveliest compassion for her, and guessing (for she could not imagine how he could know with certainty) her exact situation, and manifesting an apparently sincere and hearty interest towards her. Although her uncle had forborne to trouble her upon that hateful subject, after he had first proposed it, she knew his disposition too well to regard the reprieve as an abandonment of his original design. As she turned away to conceal her emotion from her cousins, her streaming eyes encountered those of Morton. The young seaman was shocked and alarmed at her tears, though he had not the most distant suspicion that she had understood a word that had been said. Her beauty had first attracted his notice--it was so un-Spanish, and so nearly resembling that of New England ladies; the pensive expression of her countenance had excited a lively interest and curiosity towards her; but her tears, the evidence of that "secret grief" that the heart, and only the heart, knoweth, had called up all the sympathies of his heart. I believe there are few men, who deserve the name, that are proof against a woman's tears, and there are few such men, who, when they perceive a woman, especially a young and beautiful one, oppressed with grief, anxiety, or distress, do not feel an irresistible impulse to assist and relieve her.