“Miss Welch? Who is Miss Welch?”
“Come, now, don’t be trying that with me; I know all about it, so you might as well tell me. Perhaps, you’ll need my assistance. All the gentlemen seem to be victims to her charms. Captain Allen thinks there is no one like her. Some men, when they are discarded, take to drink, but here they seem to take to Miss Welch.”
“Well, some men need one kind of stimulant, and some another; now, I like mine with a proper mixture of spirit and sweetening.” The little Captain’s eyes were helping him all they could.
“I don’t know what you mean, I’m sure.” She looked down coyly.
“Say, a sort of peach and honey?”
“You men have such vulgar similes.” The little nose was turning up.
“Well, I’ll be literary, and say ‘a snow and rose-bloom maiden,’” said the Captain, who had been reading Carlyle. “I always think of you in connection with roses and snow.”
The little nose came down, and the Captain’s peace was made. He began to tell of Indian fights and long marches over parched or snow-swept plains, where men and horses dropped. Miss Elizabeth, like Desdemona, to hear did seriously incline, and the Captain was invited to supper.