wing near the window, dropped her hands and work on her lap, and
looked up with inexpressible amazement in her sweet blue eyes.

"Brother," said Mrs. Brand earnestly, "you don't mean to tell me that
you're going to marry at _your_ time of life?"

"Eh! what? Marry?"

The captain looked, if possible, more amazed than his sister for a
second or two, then his red face relaxed into a broad grin, and he
sat down on a chair and chuckled, wiping the perspiration (he seemed
always more or less in a state of perspiration) from his bald head
the while.

"Why, no, sister, I'm not going to marry; did I speak of marryin'?"

"No; but you spoke of being tired of a bachelor life, and wishing to
change."

"Ah! you women," said the captain, shaking his head--"always
suspecting that we poor men are wantin' to marry you. Well, pr'aps
you ain't far wrong neither; but I'm not goin' to be spliced
yet-a-while, lass. Marry, indeed!

'Shall I, wastin' in despair,
Die, 'cause why? a woman's rare?'"

"Oh! Captain Ogilvy, that's not rightly quoted," cried Minnie, with a
merry laugh.

"Ain't it?" said the captain, somewhat put out; for he did not like
to have his powers of memory doubted.

"No; surely women are not _rare_," said Minnie.

"Good ones are," said the captain stoutly.

"Well; but that's not the right word."

"What _is_ the right word, then?" asked the captain with affected
sternness, for, although by nature disinclined to admit that he could
be wrong, he had no objection to be put right by Minnie.

"Die because a woman's f----," said Minnie, prompting him.

"F----, 'funny?'" guessed the captain.

"No; it's not 'funny'," cried Minnie, laughing heartily.

"Of course not," assented the captain, "it could not be 'funny'
nohow, because 'funny' don't rhyme with 'despair'; besides, lots o'
women ain't funny a bit, an' if they was, that's no reason why a man
should die for 'em; what _is_ the word, lass?"

"What am _I_?" asked Minnie, with an arch smile, as she passed her
fingers through the clustering masses of her beautiful hair.

"An angel, beyond all doubt," said the gallant captain, with a burst
of sincerity which caused Minnie to blush and then to laugh.

"You're incorrigible, captain, and you are so stupid that it's of no
use trying to teach you."

Mrs. Brand--who listened to this conversation with an expression of
deep anxiety on her meek face, for she could not get rid of her first
idea that