“I know that there are rogues about,” Robin answered, with a judicial frown; “but foul play never should hurt fair play; and we haul them through the water when we catch them. Your father is terribly particular, I know, and that is the worst thing there can be; but I do not care a groat for all objections, Mary, unless the objection begins with you. I am sure by your eyes, and your pretty lips and forehead, that you are not the one to change. If once any lucky fellow wins your heart, he will have it--unless he is a fool--forever. I can do most things, but not that, or you never would be thinking about the other people. What would anybody be to me in comparison with you, if I only had the chance? I would kick them all to Jericho. Can you see it in that way? can you get hot every time you think of me?” “Really,” said Mary, looking very gently at him, because of his serious excitement, “you are very good, and very brave, and have done wonders for me; but why should I get hot?” “No, I suppose it is not to be expected. When I am in great peril I grow hot, and tingle, and am alive all over. Men of a loftier courage grow cold; it depends upon the constitution; but I enjoy it more than they do, and I can see things ten times quicker. Oh, how I wish I was Nelson! how he must enjoy himself!” “But if you have love of continual danger, and eagerness to be always at it,” said Mary, with wide Yorkshire sense, much as she admired this heroic type, “the proper thing for you to do is to lead a single life. You might be enjoying all the danger very much; but what would your wife at home be doing? Only to knit, and sigh, and lie awake.” Mary made a bad hit here. This picture was not at all deterrent; so daring are young men, and so selfish. “Nothing of that sort should ever come to pass,” cried Robin, with the gaze of the head of a household, “supposing only that my wife was you. I would be home regularly every night before the kitchen clock struck eight. I would always come home with an appetite, and kiss you, and do both my feet upon the scraper. I would ask how the baby was, and carry him about, and go 'one, two, three,' as the nurses do, I would quite leave the government to put on taxes, and pay them--if I could--without a word of grumble. I would keep every rope about the house in order, as only a sailor knows how to do, and fettle my own mending, and carry out my orders, and never meddle with the kitchen, at least unless my opinion was sought for concerning any little thing that might happen to be meant for me.” “Well,” exclaimed Mary, “you quite take my breath away. I had no idea that you were so clever. In return for all these wonders, what should poor I have to do?” “Poor I would only have to say just once, 'Robin, I will have you, and begin to try to love you.'” “I am afraid that it has been done long ago; and the thing that I ought to do is to try and help it.”