“You cannot be serious—I to marry Captain Cruel!”

“It is a serious offer.”

“But papa!—what would he say?”

“I never was in a position to tell his thoughts and guess what his words would be.”

“But, Auntie—he is such a bad man.”

“You know a great deal more about him than I do, of course.”

“But—he is a smuggler, I do know that.”

“Well—and what of that. There is no crime in that.”

“It is not an honest profession. They say, too, that he is a wrecker.”

“They say!—who say? What do you know?”