“I shall have a fever--I know I shall--if I don't take something. There's a singing in my head now like a chime of bells, and the back of my throat feels like a coal-bunker in one of those vile steamers. How you stand it I don't know; but to be sure you 've not been talking as I have.” The old Commodore rose, but when he reached the door, seemed suddenly to have remembered something; for he placed his hand to his forehead, and said, “What a brain I have! here was I walking away without ever so much as saying one word about it.” “Could we defer it till to-morrow, my dear Commodore?” said Maitland, coaxingly. “I have not the slightest notion what it is, but surely we could talk it over after breakfast.” “But you 'll be off by that time. Beck said that there would be no use starting later than seven o'clock.” “Off! and where to?” “To the Burnside,--to the widow Butler's,--where else! You heard it all arranged at dinner, didn't you?” “I heard something suggested laughingly and lightly, but nothing serious, far less settled positively.” “Will you please to tell me, sir, how much of your life is serious, and how much is to be accepted as levity? for I suppose the inquiry I have to make of you amounts just to that, and no more.” “Commodore Graham, it would distress me much if I were to misunderstand you once again to-night, and you will oblige me deeply if you will put any question you expect me to answer in its very simplest form.” “That I will, sir; that I will! Now then, what are your intentions?” “What are my intentions?” “Yes, sir,--exactly so; what are your intentions?” “I declare I have so many, on such varied subjects, and of such different hues, that it would be a sore infliction on your patience were I only to open the budget; and as to either of us exhausting it, it is totally out of the question. Take your chance of a subject, then, and I 'll do my best to enlighten you.” “This is fencing, sir; and it doesn't suit me?” “If you knew how very little the whole conversation suits me, you 'd not undervalue my patience.” “I ask you once again, what are your intentions as regards my youngest daughter, Miss Rebecca Graham! That's plain speaking, I believe.” “Nothing plainer; and my reply shall be equally so. I have none,--none whatever.” “Do you mean to say you never paid her any particular attentions?” “Never.” “That you never took long walks with her when at Lyle Abbey, quite alone and unaccompanied?” “We walked together repeatedly. I am not so ungrateful as to forget her charming companionship.” “Confound your gratitude, sir! it's not that I'm talking of. You made advances. You--you told her--you said--in fact, you made her believe--ay, and you made me believe--that you meant to ask her to marry you.” “Impossible!” said Maitland; “impossible!” “And why impossible? Is it that our respective conditions are such as to make the matter impossible?”