o you want my daughter Patsey?" the latter said, when his visitor
had told his story. "Well, it has certainly never entered my mind
that any of my girls should marry a Frenchman. I don't say that I
have not heard my boys making a sly joke, more than once, when the
Henriette was seen coming in, and I have seen the colour flying up
into the girl's face; but I only looked at it as boys' nonsense.
Still, I don't say that I am averse to your suit. We may be said to
be partners, in this trade of yours, and we both owe each other a
good deal. During the last eight years you must have run something
like forty cargoes, and never lost a keg or a bale; and I doubt if
as much could be said for any other craft in the trade.

"Still, one can't calculate on always being lucky. I don't think
anyone would turn traitor, when the whole countryside is interested
in the matter; and I wouldn't give much for the life of anyone who
whispered as much as a word to the revenue people. Still, accidents
will take place sometimes. Your father must have done well with the
trade, and so have I.

"At any rate, I will leave it in Patsey's hands. I have enough of
them, and to spare. And of course, you will be able to bring her
over, sometimes, to pay us a visit here.

"I think, too, that your offer of taking Leigh over with you helps
to decide me in your favour. They are all growing up and, if
anything were to put a stop to our business, this place would not
keep them all; and it would be a great thing, for Patsey, to have
her brother as a companion when you are away. The boy would learn
French, and in your father's business would get such a knowledge of
the trade with Nantes as should serve him in good stead. At any
rate, he will learn things that are a good deal more useful to him
than those he gets from the curate.

"Well, you know you will find her in the dairy, as usual. You had
better go and see what she says to it."

It is probable that Jean Martin had already a shrewd idea of what
Patsey's answer would be, and he presently returned to her father,
radiant. Patsey, indeed, had given her heart to the cheery young
sailor; and although it seemed to her a terrible thing, that she
should go to settle in France, she had the less objection to it,
inasmuch as the fear that the smuggling would be sooner or later
discovered, and that ruin might fall upon Netherstock, was ever
present in her mind, and in that of her elder sister.

To her brothers, eng