for enjoying ourselves to our heart's content; we began, every one of
us, by falling deeply in love before we had been there forty-eight
hours--I say every one, because such is a fact.

My respectable captain, who had been for many years living as a
confirmed bachelor with his only relative, an old spinster sister, with
whom he chummed, and I fancy had hardly been known to speak to another
woman, was suddenly perceived walking about the street with a large
bouquet in his hand, his hair well oiled, his coat (generally so loose
and comfortable-looking) buttoned tight to show off his figure; and then
he took to sporting beautiful kid gloves, and even to dancing. He could
not be persuaded to go on board at any cost, while he had never left his
ship before, except for an occasional day's shooting. In short, he had
fallen hopelessly in love with a buxom Spanish lady with lustrous eyes
as black as her hair, the widow of a murdered governor of the town.

Our first and second lieutenants followed suit; both were furiously in
love; and, as I said, every one, even a married man, one of my
messmates, fell down and worshipped the lovely (and lovely they were,
and no mistake) Spanish girls of Buenos Ayres, whose type of beauty is
that which only the blue blood of Spain can boast of. Now, reader, don't
be shocked, I fell in love myself, and my love affair proved of a more
serious nature, at least in its results, than that of the others,
because, while the daughter (she was sixteen, and I seventeen) responded
to my affection, her mother, a handsome woman of forty, chose to fall in
love with me herself.

This was rather a disagreeable predicament, for I didn't, of course,
return the mother's affection a bit, while I was certainly dreadfully
spoony on the daughter.