now, here, where nobody else can listen, you must hear me.
You must learn to be happy with us, you must love us, you must--'

'Oh! I do, sir, I do. Let me go, sir, if you please.'

'Not until you hear that you must love me, even me whom you cannot
bear.'

'Oh! I do, sir--I do. I thank you, I pray for you, I love you all,
always; indeed, indeed, I do.'

'But better than all the others, as I love you, so as to be my wife
when--when--'

'Let me go, Mr Owen, if you please. You must not talk to me so, sir; me,
just now a beggar at your gate.'

'But I must, I will, and you must listen. In spite of myself, and of
your cold manners and pale face, and all the trouble you take to avoid
me, I love you, Gladys, and will marry you if you will have me. I will
give up the sea, and become a steady fellow, and live at home, and make
you and my parents happy, and--'

'Oh! Mr Owen, if your parents were to hear you talking like this to me,
what would they say to you? what would they think of me? You should not
make a joke of my poverty and friendless state, sir. Anything else, but
not this! oh! not this! and from you.'

'I was never more in earnest in all my life, and ask for only one word
of encouragement from you to go and tell my and mother directly,'

'Oh! if you please, Mr Owen, do not do this. If are in earnest, sir, and
I hope you are not, you must forget that you ever said this to me.'

'I do not mean to forget it, Gladys, or to let you forget it. Will you
say the word? only give me hope and all will be right. Will you marry
me, and be the daughter of your adopted mother?'

'I can never marry any one, sir; I have nothing to live for in this
world, but to try to do my duty to you and yours, and to think of those
I have lost.'

'Gladys, your cold manner maddens me. Say you hate me, and would rather
marry some one else; say anything that has some heart in it. We sailors
are made of warmer stuff than such icebergs as you.'

'I cannot say that, sir, because I do not hate you; and I never mean to
marry, and I would sooner die than cause trouble in your family.'

'Then you won't have me, Gladys? and you mean to send me back to sea
again, and to make me return to my wild ways, and to make my mother
miserable?'

'Och hone! what will I do? Why do you say such things to me, Mr Owen,
who have never done you any harm? I cannot marry--I cannot do what would
be wicked and ungrateful--I will go away again back to old Ireland, an