“Now, Jack, listen to me:  mine is an old story, but in most cases the consequences have not been so fatal.  I shall not tell you my name; it was once a fair one, but now tarnished.  I was the only daughter of a merchant and ship-owner, a rich man, and the first person in consequence in the seaport town where I was born and brought up.  I never knew my mother, who died a year after I was born.  I was brought up as most girls are who have no mother or brothers; in short, I was much indulged by my father and flattered by other people.  I was well educated, as you may suppose; and, moreover, what you may not credit quite so easily, I was very handsome.  In short, I was a beauty and a fortune, at the head of the society of the place, caressed, indulged, and flattered by all.  This, if it did not spoil me, at least made me willful.  I had many offers, and many intended offers, which I nipped in the bud, and I was twenty-three before I saw any one who pleased me.  At last a vessel came in consigned to the house, and the captain was invited to dinner.  He was a handsome careless young man, constantly talking about the qualities of his ship, and, to my surprise, paying me little or none of that attention which I now considered as my due.  This piqued me, and in the end I set my affections on him; either he did not or would not perceive it, and he sailed without showing me any preference.  In six months he returned, and whether it was that he was told of by others, or at last perceived, my feelings toward him, he joined the crowd of suitors, made a proposal in his offhand manner, as if he was indifferent as to my reply, and was accepted.  My father, to whom he communicated the intelligence as carelessly as if he were talking about freight, did not approve of the match.  ‘Very well,’ replied he, ’I shall say no more; as long as a man has a ship he does not want a wife.’  He returned and stated what had passed, and my father also spoke to me.  I was self-willed and determined, and my father yielded.  We were married, and I certainly had no reason to complain of my husband, who was very kind to me.  But I was jealous of—­what do you think?  Of his ship!  For he cared more for it than he did for me; and three months after our marriage, notwithstanding all my tears and entreaties, and the expostulations of my father, he would sail again.  He offered to take me with him, and I would gladly have gone, but my father would not listen to it.  He sailed, and I never saw him again; his vessel, with all hands, foundered, with many others, in a heavy gale.  The news did not arrive until many months afterward, and I had not been a mother more than six weeks when I found that I was a widow.  I have passed all this over quickly, Jack, because it is of less moment—­my trials had not commenced.