Hannah Longly was not sorry to have such a companion, and, to say the truth, was not sorry to be made love to in a quiet way. Though she was really a good girl, and neither fretted nor murmured, she did feel that the place where her father had fixed his abode was very lonely, and shut her off from any sort of society she could have enjoyed. She did also feel that, unless by some miracle not to be expected, a young man equal to herself in taste and feelings were suddenly brought and dropped down like an aerolite in the neighbourhood, the only alternative before her was living on in single blessedness, or marrying the richest fisherman she could find. Some of the officers who had known Longly at a former period came to see him from time to time, it is true, and one old gentleman, a post-captain in the navy, who had been lieutenant of Longly's first ship, fell desperately in love with her at the age of sixty-five, and offered to marry her, holding out the prospect of her becoming, at some future time, Mrs. Admiral Jackson; but Hannah's ambition was not of that kind, and she refused decidedly and at once. She had occasionally seen others, too, at her father's house, with whom the ambition of the heart might have been satisfied; but they either only strayed for a brief call at the house of the well-known old sailor, or showed themselves merely disposed to trifle with pretty Hannah Longly as an inferior. To this she was not disposed to submit, feeling that the way by which a woman should be won does not begin in insult, even though the shade be light. She was well pleased, then, upon all occasions, to see Everard Morrison. She esteemed him highly, she liked him much, and he was daily making progress in her regard; so that, at the time we speak of, though he had not asked her and she had not consented, all things bade fair to make her very soon the wife of a thriving young lawyer in a country town. The fact of Captain Longly having gone out to speak with old Will, as he was called, left young Morrison a favourable opportunity for telling his tale and exchanging vows with Hannah Longly, an opportunity which few men would have let slip, especially when, from the spot in which he was seated, he saw the old gentleman saunter away with his companion towards the seacoast. But Everard Morrison was a phenomenon in many respects. He was modest notwithstanding his profession, and he could not make up his mind to speak words which, though they might render Hannah Longly his wife, might, at the same time, deprive him of the pleasure he enjoyed from time to time in her society. He wished to speak, he longed to speak; but yet he could not make up his mind to do it: perhaps Hannah herself expected it; and certain it is that nothing which Everard said upon any other subject was either very applicable or very agreeable.