“Ah, well! you are nothing but a bit of a girl, after all, and the very tiniest mite of a girl, for seventeen years of age, that I ever saw in my life! Well, you shan’t be a sailor and work on board ship! You shall be a dainty little lady in your own house: “‘With servants to attend you When you go up or down.’ “Come, now! tell you old uncle a secret: Isn’t my lord sweet on you?” And the old sailor took his pipe from his mouth and poked the stem of it into her side. “‘Sweet on me?’” echoed Rosemary, in perplexity. “In love with you, then. Every girl knows what that means as soon as she knows her right hand from her left, or sooner. Tell me the truth, now—isn’t the earl in love with you?” “Oh, no!” exclaimed Rosemary, in all sincerity; for although she knew that Lord Enderby had proposed to marry her, it never occurred to her to think of his being “in love” with her, or anybody else, because she considered him so much too old for her—old enough to be her father, as in truth he was. “Well, then I don’t know the weather signs in that latitude! That’s all. His eyes are never off you, child. If he has not told you he loves you, he will do so soon. You must then refer him to me. I am the head of the family, and in the lack of your father, must stand in his shoes. You are very young to marry, Rosemary—only just seventeen. And I should accept his lordship’s offer only with the understanding that he should wait for you a year; but then I should accept him, my girl; for it is not often that an English earl offers marriage to the daughter of a merchant captain, even though she is a little beauty and does come of a good family. And Enderby is a good sort. That is better than being an earl. He is a good sort.” Here the old man put his pipe in his mouth and smoked on in silence for some minutes, during which Rosemary sat by his side in dumb distress. At last the skipper took out his pipe, blew off a cloud of smoke that went floating over the sea, and then he said: “So you understand, my dear, that I, the head of your family, entirely approve the suit of Lord Enderby.” Rosemary was ready to cry. “But, Uncle Gideon, I don’t want to marry the earl! I like him so very much! I love him—I love him dearly! He is the best man I ever saw in my life! And I do love him dearly, dearly; but I couldn’t marry him, and I wouldn’t marry him for the whole wide world!” exclaimed Rosemary, with her little face and frame all quivering with her earnestness. “Well—upon—my—word!” muttered the old skipper, laying down his pipe for good and all, and staring at his little niece, but to no purpose, for they were sitting in deep shadow now, and he could not see her face. “You love the earl dearly, and would not marry him for the world! That is crazy talk. What do you mean by it?”