'I've been taking a look about your neighbourhood,' said Captain Jackman. 'Very pretty, and the sea view spacious, but rather tame, I fear.'
'Yes,' clipped in Miss Conway. 'Those who praise this place when the summer is glowing with roses forget the seven months of winter, the roaring chimneys, the eternal crash of sea, so cold that your marrow hardens to it! You can't leave your house for the snow, nobody can come to see you, and this is the life my father dedicates his only daughter to!'
But she did not speak in temper. No swell of bosom or sparkle of eye accompanied her words. It seemed indeed as if she merely coquetted with the point, and Captain Jackman noticed it.
'The fact is,' said the commander, fastening his eye on Captain Jackman, 'I am too poor to live anywhere else.'
'I hate poverty,' exclaimed the captain, with a scowl; 'it is the most detestable of human misfortunes. What is meant by being poor? To possess all the desire without the capacity of enjoyment. Fortunately there is no poverty at sea; money is not wanted. There is nothing to buy.'
'You shall not call yourself a poor man here, Captain Jackman,' said Miss Conway, flashing an arch look at him.
'How is a man to make his fortune in this age,' continued the captain, 'now that the wars are ended, and there is nothing to be done in buccaneering and the loose trades? What use, for example, can I put my brig to?'
'You see,' said the commander, 'being a naval man I have very little knowledge of the merchant side of the ocean life.'
'I shall sell her, she is of no use to me,' said the captain, looking at Miss Conway.