‘Lor’, my dear, one would need the breath of a healthy giant to keep pace with your impatience. Give me leave to rest a minute.’ ‘All’s well at home, I hope?’ ‘Why, yes, of course, as well as it can be with a mother and father whose only child is leaving them, perhaps for ever, in a couple of days.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘But it is his wish, and it is his father’s wish, and that must make it right--yes, that must make it right; though I’d have been grateful, very grateful, if it hadn’t been the sea.’ She wept for a few minutes, and I held my peace. Then drying her eyes with a resolved motion of the handkerchief, she said: ‘You’ve been enjoying some lively days of late, Marian?’ ‘Happy days. Poor Will!’ and now I felt as if I must cry, too. ‘You’re a strange creature, my dear. Whatever you do seems to me wrong. And yet, somehow, I can never satisfy my mind that your conduct’s improper. I believe you’d be the same were your mother living. Your father might have held you in, but you’d have had your way with your poor mother.’ ‘What have I done?’ said I, bridling up and flushing in the face. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ she answered mildly. ‘Of course, your going about so much with Captain Butler, often being alone with him, as Will has told us, is quite contrary to my ideas of good conduct. Do you want the man for a husband, Marian?’ I guessed by my temper that I looked hotly at her. ‘Do you, child, do you? You should answer me. If you do not answer me I will go, and I am sure that you will wish this house should be burnt down rather than that I should go.’ My temper went with this, and with it the blood out of my face. ‘What do you want me to say, aunt?’ I exclaimed in a faint voice. ‘Would you be content to marry Captain Butler?’ I looked down upon the ground and said softly: ‘I love him.’ ‘He loves you. Do you know that?’ ‘He has not told me so.’ ‘He is a man of very gentlemanlike feelings, far above the average merchant sea-captain.’ ‘Oh, don’t I know it!’ I cried. ‘Well, he loves you, and would be very glad to marry you. And I dare say he would,’ said my aunt, looking up and down my figure and then round the room, ‘but he’ll not offer marriage unless he is certain you’ll accept him. He spent last evening with us, and had a very long and serious talk with your uncle and me on the subject. He declines to recognise your stepfather, which is quite proper under the circumstances, and regards me and your uncle as taking the place of your parents. Now, my dear, he is very much in love with you, and his diffidence comes from your being well off. We had a very long and serious talk, and I am here to have a serious talk with you, if not a long one.’ I felt that my face was lighted up; I saw the reflection of its delight in her own placid expression. My heart bounded; I could have danced and sung and waltzed about the room. I sat down, locking my hands tightly upon my lap, and listened with all the composure I could summon.