“‘Without doubt,’ reply I, stiffly, pulling a dry and faded ox-eye flower out of the odorous mound beside me; ‘for my part, I do not see why you should not go to-morrow, or indeed--if we could send into Plymouth for a chaise--this afternoon; you are so thin that you look all mouth and eyes, and you can hardly stand, without assistance, but these, of course, are trifling drawbacks, and I daresay would be rather an advantage on board ship than otherwise.’ “‘You are angry!’ he says, with a sort of laugh in his deep eyes. ‘You look even prettier when you are angry than when you are pleased.’ “‘It is no question of my looks,’ I say, still in some heat, though mollified by the irrelevant compliment. “‘For the second time you are thinking me ungrateful,’ he says, gravely; ‘you do not tell me so in so many words, because it is towards yourself that my ingratitude is shown; the first time you told me of it it was almost the first thing that you ever said to me.’ “‘So it was,’ I answer quickly; ‘and if the occasion were to come over again, I should say it again. I daresay you did not mean it, but it sounded exactly as if you were complaining of my father for being too careful of you.’ “‘He _is_ too careful of me!’ cries the young man, with a hot flushing of cheek and brow. ‘I cannot help it if it make you angry again; I _must_ say it, he is more careful of me than he would be of his own son, if he had one.’ “‘Did not he promise your mother that he would look after you?’ ask I eagerly. ‘When people make promises to people on their death-beds they are in no hurry to break them; at least, such people as father are not.’ “‘You do not understand,’ he says, a little impatiently, while that hot flush still dwells on his pale cheek; ‘my mother was the last person in the world to wish him to take care of my body at the expense of my honour.’ “‘What are you talking about?’ I say, looking at him with a lurking suspicion that, despite the steady light of reason in his blue eyes, he is still labouring under some form of delirium. “‘Unless I tell you all my grievance, I see that you will never comprehend,’ he says sighing. ‘Well, listen to me and you shall hear it, and if you do not agree with me, when I have done, you are not the kind of girl I take you for.’ “‘Then I am sure I am not the kind of girl you take me for,’ reply I, with a laugh; ‘for I am fully determined to disagree with you entirely.’ “‘You know,’ he says, raising himself a little from his hay couch and speaking with clear rapidity, ‘that whenever we take a French prize a lot of the French sailors are ironed, and the vessel is sent into port, in the charge of one officer and several men; there is some slight risk attending it--for my part, I think _very_ slight--but I suppose that your father looks at it differently, for--_I have never been sent_.’ “‘It is accident,’ say I, reassuringly; ‘your turn will come in good time.’