talk to the young
man who was born here?"

"Yes," she answered, "and they will be with us presently."

"Very good, very good, that's quite right," said Captain Ichabod
hurriedly; "but before they come, I want to say--that is, I would like
you to know--that I have sold my ship. I am not a pirate any longer, I
am a sugar-planter, bedad. Beg your pardon! That is, I intend to be
one. You remember that you once talked to me about sugar-planting in
Barbadoes, and so I am here. I want to find a good sugar plantation, to
buy it, and live on it; I heard that you were stopping on this side of
the river, and so I came here."

"But there is no sugar plantation here," said Lucilla, very demurely.

"Oh, no," said Ichabod, "oh, no, of course not; but you are here, and I
wanted to find you; a sugar plantation would be of no use without you."

She looked at him, still very demurely. "I don't quite understand you,"
she said. She turned her head a little and saw that her family and
Dickory were slowly moving towards the house. She knew that with
diffident persons no time should be lost, for, if interrupted, it often
happened that they did not begin again.

"Then I suppose," she said, her face turned up towards him, but her eyes
cast down, "that you are going to say that you would like to marry me?"

"Of course, of course," exclaimed Ichabod; "I thought you knew that that
is what I came here for, bedad."

"Very well, then," said Lucilla, turning her eyes to the face of the man
she had dreamed of in many happy nights. "No, no," she added quickly,
"you must not kiss me; they are all coming, and there are the two
boatmen."

He did not kiss her, but later he made up for the omission.

The moment Mrs. Mander saw Captain Ichabod and her daughter standing
together she knew exactly what had happened; she had noticed things on
board the Belinda. She hurried up to Lucilla and drew her aside.

"My dear," she whispered, with a frightened face, "you cannot marry a
pirate; you never, never can!"

"Dear mother," said Lucilla, "he is not a pirate; he has sold his ship
and is going to be a sugar-planter."

Now they all came up and heard these words of Lucilla.

"Yes, indeed," said Captain Ichabod, "you may not suppose it, but your
daughter and I are about to marry, and will plant sugar together. Now, I
want to buy a plantation. Where is that young man who was born here,
bedad?"

Dickory advanced, laughing. Here was a fine opportunity, a m