of being honorably killed, has just suffered himself to die of a stupid pleurisy; but it is not of him but of myself that we are now to speak.  After having fought with Jean Bart, I have made a voyage with our not less celebrated William Dampier, whom I may dare call my friend.  You may therefore understand, Kate, that if you have the reputation of an honest girl, I have that of a good sailor.  The name of Captain Stradling is favorably known upon two oceans, and it will be to your credit, if ever, with your arm linked in mine, we walk as man and wife, through any port of England or Scotland.  I have said.  Now, look, reflect; if my proposition suits you, I will settle for life on terra firma, and bid adieu to the sea; if not, I resume my projected expedition, and it will be to you, Kate, that I shall say adieu.’

Catherine opened her mouth to thank him, as was suitable, for his good intentions.

‘Do not reply to me!’ interrupted he again; ’in three days I will come to receive your decision.’

And he went out, leaving her amazed at having listened to so long a speech from one, who until then, seated motionless in a distant corner of the room, had always appeared to her the most rigid and silent of seamen.

That very day Catherine has come to a decision concerning the captain; she thinks him ugly and disagreeable, coarse and ignorant; he has dared to tell her that she is thirty years old, and she will hardly be so at St. Valentine’s Day, which is six weeks ahead, at least.  Besides the scar which he has received from the celebrated Jean Bart, his countenance has no beauty to boast of:  his face is long and pale, his temples are furrowed with wrinkles, and his lips thick and heavy; his eyebrows, at the top of his forehead, seem to be lost in his hair; his eyes are not mates, his nose is one-sided; his form is perhaps still worse; he walks after the fashion of a duck.  Fie! can such a man be a suitable match for the rich landlady of the Royal Salmon, for the beautiful Kitty; for her who, among so many admirers and lovers, has had but the difficulty of a choice?

The next day towards nightfall, Catherine, seated in her bar, in the large leathern arm-chair which served as her throne, with dreamy and downcast brow, and chin resting on her hand, was still thinking of Captain Stradling, but her ideas had assumed a different aspect from those of the evening before.

She was saying to herself:  ’If he has thick and heavy lips, it is because he is an Englishman; if he walks like a duck, it is because he is a sailor; if he has taken me to be thirty years old, that proves simply that he is a good physiognomist, and I shall have one painful avowal the less to make after marriage.  As for his scar, he has a thousand reasons to be proud of it, and, upon close examination, it is not unbecoming.  It would be very difficult for me to choose a husband, on account of the discontented suitors who will be left in the lurch; but I will relinquish my business, and that will put an end to all inconvenience.  He is rich, so much for the profit; he is a captain, so much for the honor.  Come, come, Mistress Stradling will have no reason to complain!’