rs, as soft as a wind which don't so much as shake the
canvas; "I don't think I'm going to marry any one; but I'm certain sure
I won't have David Thomas!"

Whereat she fell a-beating her little foot again upon the dead leaves.

Well, mates, I didn't quite like that prophecy of hers; but 'twas better
than to hear her say she'd allow herself to be driven into wedlock with
such a one as David. So I held my peace. Yes, indeed. Yet I felt as
if a thunderbolt were placed aloft, right over my head, or as if a
volcano were a-going to spring up under my feet. My brain began to
wobble like bilge-water in a ship's hold, when all of a sudden an idea
struck me. Yes, indeed! What's more, my bearings was right for once.

"It's that girl, Gwen," I says, "as is at the bottom of this rig. David
Thomas is a sawny landlubber. He'd never have the courage to speak of
his own accord. Particular when he's received no encouragement from
you."

But Rhoda didn't exactly see through Hugh Anwyl's glasses. She wasn't a
sort of girl to think Gwen a snake, being herself as innocent of wrong
as the snow which falls straight from Paradise.

Says she, quite solemn, "You must not go to charge Gwen Thomas with them
things. Gwen's my dear friend, indeed."

Well, my lads, if I hadn't got narvous, I'd have told her that me and
Gwen had been just a trifle free with each other's lips. But, I tell
ye, I feared to say the words. She was chuck full of a sort of what you
may call a romance. Often and often she've said, that she felt so happy
in having picked the first flower of my heart--whereby she meant that
she'd got the whole of my love. And so she had. Yes, indeed. May I be
shrivelled to a mummy if she hadn't. Only, ye see, if I'd gone to tell
her that Gwen and I had been playing the fool, she'd mayhap have thought
different. So I kept my own counsel.

"Now," says she, in a wheedling, coaxing way no lubber ever could
resist, "it will all come right in the end, if you won't go to act
foolish. Yes, indeed. Father likes David, but father loves Rhoda. And
when David asks me, and I says, `no,' father ain't the kind of man to
say, `you must.'"

"Ay, ay!" I answered her; "but ain't he the boy to say `you mustn't,'
in case a lubber of the name of Anwyl should put that there same curious
question?"

Well, my lads, Rhoda, at this, went off on the starboard tack, for fear
I should make out the cut of her jib. She daren't face me; for she