'Brigadiers.' Not that I stand upon sermonry about it, except in the
matter of his Majesty's health, as never is due without ardent spirits.
But my wife hath a right to her own way, and never yet I knowed her go
away from it."

"Not so, by any means," the mistress said, and said it so quietly that
some believed her; "I never was so much for that. Captain, you are a
married man. But reason is reason, in the middle of us all, and what
else should I say to my husband? Mary lass, Mary lof, wherever is your
duty? The captain hath the best pot empty!"

With a bright blush Mary sprang up to do her duty. In those days no girl
was ashamed to blush; and the bloodless cheek savored of small-pox.

"Hold up your head, my lof," her father said aloud, with a smile of
tidy pride, and a pat upon her back; "no call to look at all ashamed,
my dear. To my mind, captain, though I may be wrong, however, but to my
mind, this little maid may stan' upright in the presence of downright
any one."

"There lies the very thing that never should be said. Captain, you have
seven children, or it may be eight of them justly. And the pride of
life--Mary, you be off!"

Mary was glad to run away, for she liked not to be among so many men.
But her father would not have her triumphed over.

"Speak for yourself, good wife," he said. "I know what you have got
behind, as well as rooks know plough-tail. Captain, you never heard me
say that the lass were any booty, but the very same as God hath made