“Neither, but a grave and veritable chronologer. However, since you doubt, and since you are so new to the ocean”—
“Pardon me!” the lady gravely interrupted, “I am, on the contrary, one who has seen much of it.”
The Rover, who had rather suffered his unsettled glances to wander over the youthful countenance of Gertrude than towards her companion, now bent his eyes on the last speaker, where he kept them fastened so long as to create some little embarrassment in the subject of his gaze.
“You seem surprised that the time of a female should have been thus employed,” she observed, with a view to arouse his attention to the impropriety of his observation.
“We were speaking of the sea, if I remember,” he continued, like a man that was suddenly awakened from a deep reverie. “Ay, I know it was of the sea; for I had grown boastful in my panegyrics: I had told you that this ship was faster than”—
“Nothing!” exclaimed Gertrude, laughing at his blunder. “You were playing Master of Ceremonies at a nautical ball!”
“Will you figure in a minuet? Shall I honour my boards with the graces of your person?”
“Me, sir? and with whom? the gentleman who knows so well the manner of keeping his feet in a gale?”
“You were about to relieve any doubts we might have concerning the amusements of seamen,” said the governess, reproving the too playful spirit of her pupil, by a glance of her own grave eye.
“Ay, it was the humour of the moment, nor will I balk it.”