"Poor, poor little mother!" he said, as he laid a comforting arm about her shoulder, "we cannot let the lad go beyond the length of her apron string again, if she is to lead me such a life as this of last week. Why, we have had him die of seven separate deaths already. Let me see," and he began counting soberly on his fingers: "first, drowned in Chesapeake Bay; second, caught by pirates and carried off to the Bermudas; third, languishing in prison, for taking the part of Virginia in one of Master Claiborne's skirmishes between commonwealth and palatinate; fourth, stabbed in the streets of St. Mary's on a dark night and robbed of his gold; fifth, shot in a duel brought on by his hot temper 'so like his father's;' sixth, frozen to death on some lonely Maryland road; or last and worst of all, dead in love with some designing maid, wife, or widow there at St. Mary's and wholly forgetful of his duty to thee and me--ay, sweetheart?" "Hush, Humphrey! Cease thy jesting and tell me is that _The Lady Betty_, or is it not?" "Why, no, as I make out, 'tis too large for the ketch, deeper built, and with a prow more fit to buffet ocean waves. 'Tis more likely a merchant packet plying a regular trade with James City or St. Mary's; but come, let us signal her from the wharf and perhaps we may get some news of Romney." The wind was blowing cold as they reached the dock, and Huntoon wrapped the gray cloak close about his wife, as they seated themselves under the shelter of a pile of logs to watch the approaching vessel. "Dost thou remember, Betty, the day I set sail from James City in _The Red Fox_?" "Ay, that I do, and I watching thee from the window of the Carys' cottage, with my heart in my throat." "And I that disappointed I could have cried like a schoolboy, because thou camest not to see me off." "I dared not." "If I could only have known that!" "Poor fool, too dull to ask what thou wast aching to know!" "Ay, poor fool indeed, and much needless trouble my dulness and diffidence together brought upon me, and on thee too; but in the end all came out right, and I sometimes think we could not have loved each other so well but for all the trials we went through." For all answer Elizabeth Huntoon slipped her hand into her husband's. "Yet such inconsistent creatures are we, I own I would not our boy should suffer as I did." "Never fear; Romney is a lad of spirit, and will never lose a girl for lack of asking." "Ay, but asking and getting are two different things. There was Captain Spellman. He wooed thee with as much spirit as any woman could wish." "The presuming coxcomb!" "There it is. What is a poor man to do, when asking is presumption, and not asking is dulness?" "Do? Why, hold his tongue and use his eyes, to be sure." "But, Betty, thou wert never twice alike." "So shouldst thou have changed too. When I was hot, thou shouldst have been cold. When I was cold, thou shouldst have turned to a furnace."