a handsome gentleman, as well dressed as circumstances
would permit, very polite in his manners, and with as great a desire to
transact his business without giving her any more inconvenience than was
necessary, as if he had been a tax-collector or had come to examine the
gas meter. If all the buccaneers were such agreeable men as this one,
she and her friends had been laboring under a great mistake.

De Lussan did not complete his examination of the treasurer's house in
one visit, and during the next two or three days the young widow not
only became acquainted with the character of buccaneers in general, but
she learned to know this particular buccaneer very well, and to find out
what an entirely different man he was from the savage fellows who
composed his company. She was grateful to him for his kind manner of
appropriating her possessions, she was greatly interested in his
society,--for he was a man of culture and information,--and in less than
three days she found herself very much in love with him. There was not a
man in the whole town who, in her opinion, could compare with this
gallant commander of buccaneers.

It was not very long before de Lussan became conscious of the favor he
had found in the eyes of this lady; for as a buccaneer could not be
expected to remain very long in one place, it was necessary, if this
lady wished the captor of her money and treasure to know that he had
also captured her heart, that she must not be slow in letting him know
the state of her affections, and being a young person of a very
practical mind she promptly informed de Lussan that she loved him and
desired him to marry her.

The gallant Frenchman was very much amazed when this proposition was
made to him, which was in the highest degree complimentary. It was very
attractive to him--but he could not understand it. The lady's husband
had been dead but a few days--he had assisted in having the unfortunate
gentleman properly buried--and it seemed to him very unnatural that the
young widow should be in such an extraordinary hurry to prepare a
marriage feast before the funeral baked meats had been cleared from the
table.

There was but one way in which he could explain to himself this
remarkable transition from grief to a new affection. He believed that
the people of this country were like their fruits and their flowers. The
oranges might fall from the trees, but the blossoms would still be
there. Husband and wives or lovers mig