I had dressed myself with extraordinary care, but my eyes wanted the sparkle of the previous evening, my cheeks the rose of those merry hours. I wondered as I glanced at Captain Butler whether the thought of me had kept him awake all night. Somehow I could not look at him with the confidence of the previous evening. I felt shy; my eyes stole to his face and dropped on detection; my appetite was poor, and my laugh unnaturally loud with nerve. His own manner was a little constrained, and I saw, and my heart throbbed and leaped when I saw, admiration strong in his looks whenever he regarded, or addressed, or listened to me. Oh, thought I, what would I give now for sauciness enough to ask you downright: ‘Have you a sweetheart?’ During the course of the dinner I said to him: ‘Don’t you think my way of living strange?’ ‘Not at all.’ ‘You need a stepfather to understand my unhappy state.’ ‘No very unhappy state, surely,’ said he, looking at the table, and then round the well-furnished room. ‘I think I shall go a voyage some of these days, Will,’ said I. ‘Sail with me, Marian,’ he answered. ‘Where’s your ship bound to?’ ‘Sydney, New South Wales--a splendid trip. Three months there, three months back, three months to see the country in.’ ‘And you give me a fortnight to make up my mind!’ said I, laughing. ‘Don’t they send the convicts to Sydney? I can’t fancy that country. ’Tis seeing nothing to meet one’s transported fellow-countrymen. There are plenty of such folks walking past this house at this minute. Who would leave Stepney for Sydney?’ My cousin asked what trade the _Arab Chief_ would be in. Captain Butler answered that he believed she was to trade to the West Indies and eastern South American ports. ‘There’s a big world for you that way, Marian,’ said Will. ‘Down there the wind’s full of bright parrots, every tree writhes with monkeys. Robinson Crusoe lived all alone somewhere in those parts, that’s if the great river of Oroonoque’s where it was in Friday’s time. The home of the great sea serpent is in the Caribbean Sea, and if you kick up an old stone by chance you stand to unearth a mine of precious metal.’