"I--ye--es, sir; I said I--I'd--I'd wait," answered Dorothy, reluctantly. "Yes? Well, you will; you'll wait until he gets to be a captain. A man isn't fit to be married until he has had command of a ship and three or four hundred men; he doesn't know how to manage a wife. Look at me! I married when I was a midshipman and--and--I know." "But, sir, it will be fifteen years before I am a captain! Why, you weren't a captain yourself until you were forty, and I can never hope to equal your record." "No more you won't," said the old man, somewhat mollified by the adroit compliment. "Oh, grandfather, not forty years! We couldn't wait until then! Why, I'm only seventeen now, sir, and James--Mr. Maurice--is only nineteen. Please, sir----" Dorothy dropped on her knees on the sand before him, and at a motion of her hand Maurice did likewise. "Get up, get up, you young fools!" said the old man; "suppose some one should see us!" "No, sir," said Dorothy, grasping the skirts of his coat tightly; "not until you modify your terms. You know he loves me, and--and--and I am so sorry for him," she added, ingenuously. "Well," said the captain, to whom Dorothy was as the apple of his eye, "I'll knock off a little. He can marry you when he has command of a ship. If he is lucky, he might be made a lieutenant-commandant in five years. Now, up with you!" The young people struggled to their feet and looked sadly at each other. "Five years!" ejaculated the midshipman, mournfully. "It's better than twenty, Jim," said Dorothy, cheerfully. "Can't you wait?" "Wait! I will wait forever, Dot, I love you so----" "Waugh!" roared the old captain, "are you going on with these proceedings before my very eyes, at my age? It's indecent! There," he added, turning his back to them and walking away a few steps, at the same time pulling an old silver watch from his pocket, "I'll give you just five minutes; and take my advice, youngster, when you cut out a prize under convoy of a ship-of-the-line, don't make so much noise about it." "I'll get a command inside of a year, Dot darling, or die in trying," whispered the young man. "I would rather have you alive without a command than dead with one, Jim," remarked Dorothy through her tears as the old captain came back toward them. "Now, I take it, you have just about time to make the harbor around yonder point where your ship is waiting for you," he said. "You've said your good-bys, and you've got your answer, so you'd better up anchor and make a run for it. I'll take care Dot keeps her word, and mind you keep yours! Good-by and good luck to you. If you are half as impudent in the face of the enemy as you have been to me here, you will get the ship in a week." The young midshipman clasped the proffered hand of the retired old sea-captain, wrung it warmly, looked longingly at Dorothy dissolved in tears on her grandfather's shoulder, and then turned and made his way slowly down the beach toward the town and the harbor.