'Such things are easy to me,' said Bill, affably; 'when we are married I shall teach thee to speak good English. We shall marry in Apia at the mission church; then thou shalt go to Tutuila with thy mistress, and wait till I return from Sydney. I have money saved up there. Then when I return I will buy a cutter, and trade on the coast. Hast many poor relations?'
'Not many.'
'That is good. It is a bad thing for a wife to have people who eat up her husband's substance. But yet I am not a mean man.'
'Why dost thou want me for wife?' said the girl, edging a little nearer to him, and looking up at his stalwart figure.
'Because I am a widower, and I have some money saved, and want to live in mine own house again. My dead wife was a girl of Thikombia in Fiji.'
'Pah!' said Solepa, turning down her lips in contempt. 'Ou te inoino fafine Viti, e matapua'a.'[#]
[#] 'Fiji women disgust me, they are so ugly.'
'True, very true,' said Bill, diplomatically, 'many of them be ugly; but she was not. She was beautiful; but yet not so beautiful as thee, Solepa.'
He took a silver ring off his little finger, and, stooping down, lifted her left hand.
