“It is not for me to give counsel to my captain, but is it not a fact that selfishness grows upon us with advancing years?”
“Very likely.”
“Has it occurred to you that in concluding to pass the remainder of your days in this mining settlement, you are thinking more of yourself than of your child?”
“What have I said that warrants that question?” asked the captain sharply.
“No higher motive than to protect a daughter from harm can inspire a father, but if she should be allowed to close your eyes, when you come to lie down and die, it will be hers to live: what then?”
“I shall leave her comfortably provided for. My pay amounted to a goodly sum when the war ended, and it is placed where no one else can reap the benefit of it. Then, too, as you know we have struck considerable 143 paying dirt of late. The prospects are that New Constantinople, even if a small town, will soon be a rich one.”
Lieutenant Russell groaned in spirit. Would the parent never understand him?
“Then you expect her to remain here, sharing in all the vicissitudes of the place? It cannot always stand still; it will either increase, bringing with it many bad elements, or it will cease to exist and these people will have to go elsewhere: what then of the child whom you have left behind you?”
“Oh, by that time,” airily replied the father; “she will be married to some good honest fellow, like the parson, who seems to be fond of her, as I know she is of him, but I will not allow her to think of marriage for a long while to come,” he added with emphasis.
Lieutenant Russell had heard all he wished. He had learned that the father would not consent to the marriage of his daughter for a number of years, and when that time came, he would select one of the shaggy, uncouth miners for her life partner.