“Don’t mention it, sir,” exclaimed Scott, laughing at the earnestness of the grateful father. “We were on the top of that pico, and I saw this road leading down to the stable. When the horse started, I thought it likely, as he turned the first corner, that he would make for the place where he got his oats; and I took a short cut over here. I happened to be just in the nick of time for business.” Scott jabbered this off as fast as he could, while he blushed like a red rose, apparently to interrupt the flow of grateful expressions to which the gentleman was disposed to give utterance. When he had finished his explanation of the manner in which he had happened to save the young lady from a greater disaster, she walked up to him, with a sweet smile on her face, and extended her hand to him. He could not do less than take it, though he felt and looked very sheepish about it. Almost any of the officers of the squadron who had passed the age of sixteen would have been delighted to take such a little hand as that; but there was not one in the whole crowd who was so little of a lady’s man as Scott. When he took the pretty hand, Maria spoke to him in Portuguese, and shook his great paw. “Those are my sentiments exactly; and I couldn’t have said it half as well myself,” he replied, with a broad grin on his face. “Speak to him in English, Maria: he does not understand you,” interposed Don Roderigue. “I shall thank you very much for what you have did for me,” said she laughing, perhaps because Scott did, or perhaps at the quality of her own English. Scott bowed, touched his cap, and turned red again. He was very anxious to have the subject changed, and insisted that Madeira was a fine country. “I say I shall tank you ver much for what you have did for me,” repeated she, evidently a little vexed. “Don’t mention it. This is a delightful climate you have here in Madeira,” stammered Scott. “He don’t understand my English,” pouted the little beauty, shaking her shoulders; but, as she spoke in her own language, Scott could not understand her. “Maria says she thanks you very much for what you have done for her; and she is very sorry she cannot make herself understood in English,” said Don Roderigue. “I understood her perfectly,” replied Scott. “But you told her not to mention it; and I am sure that would be very ungrateful in her.” “I only meant that what I did was not worth the trouble of mentioning it.” “Now say it to him again, Maria, and he will understand you,” continued her father. “I shall thank you very much for what you have did for me,” added Maria, turning to Scott, with a mischievous twinkle in her bright eyes. “I understand you as well as though you had been my next-door neighbor in the United States of America all your lifetime,” replied Scott, with his broad grin. “Oh! now you spokes too much, and I can’t understand what you speaks,” chattered the maiden.