Harvey stroked her soft hair, and pressed his lips to her cheeks.
“They won't _like_ you, Tess. They'll just love you--and they'll make me jealous.”
Again her happy laugh trilled out. “How lovely!... Harvey dear?”
“I want to tell you something--something that only mother knows, something about me--and a man.”
Harvey looked smilingly into her deep, tender eyes, half-suffused with tears.
“Go ahead, indeed! You rough, rude sailor! Any one would think I was a man by the way you speak to me... But, Harvey dear, listen... there was a man who wanted to marry me.”
Harvey was all attention at once. “Sit down here, little woman, and tell me who the------”
“Sh! Don't swear, or I won't tell you anything, not _anything at all_, about it.... Harvey dear, why do you want to go away fishing? Stay here, and help poor Mr. Atkins.”
“Are you really, really going away for two whole days?”
“Harvey dear, I'll tell you all about it. You won't be angry?”
His laughing eyes belied his assumed sternness of visage, for in her eyes there shone a light so serenely pure that he knew he had naught to dread.
“A very, _very_ nice man, sir. Now try and guess who it was?”
“Old Schuler, the fat German trader at Yap.”
“Oh, you wretch, Harvey! He's been married three times, and has dozens and dozens of all sorts of coloured children.... Now there! Guess again or I'll twist this side of your moustache until I make you cry.... Harvey dear, who was the girl whose photograph was over your bunk in father's schooner?”
“I forget. Most likely it was my sister Kate,” was the prompt reply.
“I don't believe you, Mr. Harvey Carr. But I'll find out all about _you_ by and by. You'll have to just tell me _everything_. Now guess again.”
“The captain of the _Lafayette_. He asked each of your sisters to marry him, I know, and I suppose you followed in turn as soon as you began to wear long dresses.”
“That horrible man! We all hated him. No, indeed, it was somebody better than the captain of a whaler.”
“Don't be so superior, Tess. Your brother Ned hopes to be skipper of a whaler some day.”
“So was old Ayton before he lost his teeth, and one eye, and began 'ter chaw terbacker' and drink Bourbon by the gallon.... Beauty is only skin deep, my child.”