“No—at least—not with her lips.”
“Come, boy, you’re humbuggin’ your old father. Her tongue couldn’t well do it without the lips lendin’ a hand.”
“Well then—with neither,” returned the son. “She spoke with her eyes—not intentionally, of course, for the eyes, unlike the lips, refuse to be under control.”
“Hm! I see—reef-point-patterin’ poetics again! An’ what did she say with her eyes!”
“Really, father, you press me too hard; it is difficult to translate eye-language, but if you’ll only let memory have free play and revert to that time, nigh quarter of a century ago, when you first met with a certain real poetess, perhaps—”
“Ah! you dog! you have me there. But how dare you, sir, venture to think of marryin’ on nothin’?”
“I don’t think of doing so. Am I not a first mate with a handsome salary?”
“No, lad, you’re not. You’re nothin’ better than a seaman out o’ work, with your late ship wrecked in a cocoa-nut grove!”
“That’s true,” returned Nigel with a laugh. “But is not the cargo of the said ship safe in Batavia? Has not its owner a good bank account in England? Won’t another ship be wanted, and another first mate, and would the owner dare to pass over his own son, who is such a competent seaman—according to your own showing? Come, father, I turn the tables on you and ask you to aid rather than resist me in this matter.”
“Well, I will, my boy, I will,” said the captain heartily, as he laid his hand on his son’s shoulder. “But, seriously, you must haul off this little craft and clap a stopper on your tongue—ay, and on your eyes too—till three points are considered an’ made quite clear. First, you must find out whether the hermit would be agreeable. Second, you must look the matter straight in the face and make quite sure that you mean it. For better or for worse. No undoin’ that knot, Nigel, once it’s fairly tied! And, third, you must make quite sure that Winnie is sure of her own mind, an’ that—that—”