depend on me. And as to
management, you needn't say anything to me about that, Mrs. Cliff. I saw
her bouncing to the galley of the _Summer Shelter_, and if she manages
other things as well as she managed the cooking business there, she'll
suit me."

"It seems so strange to me, Mr. Burke," said Mrs. Cliff, after a few
moments' silence. "I never imagined that you would care for Willy
Croup."

Mr. Burke drew himself forward to the edge of the chair on which he was
sitting, he put one hand on each of his outspread knees, and he leaned
forward, with a very earnest and animated expression on his countenance.
"Now, look here, Mrs. Cliff," he said, "I want to say something to you.
When I see a young woman, brought up in the very bosom of the Sunday
school, and on the quarter deck of respectability, and who never,
perhaps, had a cross word said to her in all her life, or said one to
anybody, judging from her appearance, and whose mind is more like a
clean pocket-handkerchief in regard to hard words and rough language
than anything I can think of;--when I see that young woman with a
snow-white disposition that would naturally lead her to hymns whenever
she wanted to raise her voice above common conversation,--when I see
that young woman, I say, in a moment of life or death to her and every
one about her, dash to the door of that engine room, and shout my orders
down to that muddled engineer,--knowing I couldn't leave the wheel to
give them myself,--ramming them into him as if with the point of a
handspike, yelling out everything that I said, word for word, without
picking or choosing, trusting in me that I knew what ought to be said in
such a moment, and saying it after me, word for word, cursing, swearing,
slamming down oaths on him just as I did, trusting in me all the time as
to what words ought to be used, and just warming up that blasted
engineer until sense enough came to him to make him put out his hand and
back her,--then, Mrs. Cliff, I know that a woman who stands by me at a
time like that will stand by me at any time, and that's the woman I want
to stand by. And now, what have you got to say?"

"All I have to say," answered Mrs. Cliff, who had been listening
intently to Mr. Burke's extraordinary flow of words, "all I have to say
is, if that's the way you think about her, you ought to speak to her."

"Madam," said Burke, springing to his feet, "that suits me. I would have
spoken to her before, but I had my doubts ab