t be so bad as theirs, under
the hot sun in those salt seas."

"Well, well!" said Mr. Maurice, who loved his own ease too much to like to
hear of others' dis-ease. And to turn the conversation from the possible
horrors into which it might lapse, he invited his guest out into his
gardens, among his grapehouses, his poultry and his dogs. It was a long
hour's ramble that they took there, well improved on both sides, for
Andrew of course knew it to be for his interest to please the brig's
owner; and Mr. Maurice, who prided himself on having a singularly keen
insight into character, studied the young man's every word and gesture,
for it was not often that he came across such material as this out of
which to make his captains; and to what farther effect in this instance be
pursued his studies might have been told, by any one keener than himself,
through the tone of satisfaction with which, on re-entering the parlor, he
bade his daughter take Andrew down the rooms and tell him the histories of
the surprising pictures there. For Mr. Maurice, one of the great fortunes
of the seaport, being possessed by a mania of belief that every youth who
cast tender eyes upon his daughter cast them not on her, but on her future
havings and holdings, had long since determined to select a husband for
her himself--one who evinced no servile reverence for wealth, one whom he
could trust to make her happy. "And here," he said, "I am not sure but
that I have him."

When Andrew went in to see Louie a moment on his way home that night, he
was in great spirits over the success of his visit, and, dark as it was,
made her blush the color of the rose over the low doorway where they stood
when he asked how she would like to go captain's wife next voyage. And
then he told her of Mr. Maurice's scrutiny and questioning, and the half
hint of a ship of his own to sail some day, and of the pale-faced Miss
Frarnie's interest, and of the long stroll down the parlors among the
pictures, the original of one of which he had seen somewhere in the
Mediterranean, when he and a parcel of sailors went ashore and rambled
through the port, and looked in at a church, where, in the midst of music
and incense and a kneeling crowd, they were shearing the golden locks off
of young girls and making nuns of them. And Andrew forgot to tell of the
way in which Miss Frarnie listened to him and hung upon his words: indeed,
how could he? Perhaps he did not notice it himself; but if he