"Yes," said Rosie; "he will take excellent care of Marian and have her
well in time to attend the wedding, I hope."

"I think we can manage that, daughter, as we have not fixed upon the
day," her mother said with playful look and tone.

"Oh, yes, mamma! and I do intend it to be at least six weeks before I
leave girlhood for married life," returned Rosie, laughing and blushing
as she spoke.

"It is too serious a step to be taken hastily, my dear young sister,"
remarked the captain in a tone between jest and earnest; "a step that
once taken cannot be retraced--a venture involving the happiness or
misery of perhaps a lifetime; certainly the lifetime of one if not of
both."

"Oh, you frighten me!" cried Rosie, drawing a long breath and lifting
her hands with a gesture of alarm and despair; "what shall I do? Would
you recommend single blessedness--you who have twice tried laying hold
of the other horn of the dilemma?"

"Only for a time," he said. "Look well before you leap, as I did, and
then you will be in little danger of wanting to leap back again."

"You don't? you never do?" she queried in mock surprise and doubt.

"Never!" he said with a smiling, admiring glance into Violet's
beautiful eyes, watching him with not a shade of doubt or distrust in
their azure depths; "never for a moment have I been conscious of the
slightest inclination to do so."