"While we are upon the subject," he continued, hastily, "let me speak a word for my friend, Miss West. He is quite in earnest in his love for you, and you would do well to listen to his suit. He is in every way an unexceptionable suitor. There is everything in favor of him, personally, and he is of good birth, is the heir to a title, and last, but not least, has ten thousand a year of his own." "Enough to buy him a more fitting bride than Mrs. West's niece," she said, with some bitterness, but more mirth, in her voice. "Who could be more fitting than the one he has chosen?" asked Lancaster. "It would be a _mésalliance_," she said, with her eyes full on his face as she quoted his words. "In the world's eyes--yes," he answered, quietly. "But if you love him and he loves you, you need not care for the world," he said; and he felt the whole force of the words as he spoke them. He said to himself that any man who could afford to snap his fingers at fortune and marry Leonora West would be blessed. She listened to his words calmly, and with an air of thoughtfulness, as if she were weighing them in her mind. "And so," she said, when he had ceased speaking, "you advise me, Captain Lancaster, to follow up the good impression I have made on your friend, and to--to fall into his arms as soon as he asks me?" He gave a gasp as if she had thrown cold water over him. "Pray do not understand me as advising anything!" he cried, hastily. "I merely showed you the advantages of such a marriage; but, of course, I have no personal interest in the matter. I am no match-maker." "No, of course not," curtly; then, with a sudden total change of the subject, she said: "Aren't we very near the end of our trip, Captain Lancaster?" "You are tired?" he asked. "Yes. It grows monotonous after the first day or two out," she replied. "You might have had a better time if you had let De Vere and me amuse you," he said. "Oh, I have been amused," she replied, frankly; and he wondered within himself what had amused her, but did not ask. She had a trick of saying things that chagrined him, because he did not understand them, and had a lingering suspicion that she was laughing at him. "We shall see the end of our journey to-morrow, if we have good luck," he said, and she uttered an exclamation of pleasure. "So soon? Ah, how glad I am! I wonder," reflectively, "what my aunt will think about me." "She will be astonished, for one thing," he replied. "Why?" "Because I think she is expecting a child. She will be surprised to see a young lady." "Poor papa!" a sigh; "he always called me his little girl. That is how the mistake has been made. Ah, Captain Lancaster, I can not tell you how much I miss my father!" There was a tremor in the young voice. His heart thrilled with pity for her loneliness. "I hope your aunt will be so kind to you that she will make up to you for his loss," he said. "Tell me something about her," said Leonora.