Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/231

Rh "And what are the bitter—briny thoughts?"

Judith did not answer at once, she looked down into her lap, and Mr. Menaida, whose pipe was choked, went to the tamarisks and plucked a little piece, stripped off the flower and proceeded to clear the tube with it."

Presently, while Uncle Zachie's eyes were engaged on the pipe, Judith looked up, and said hastily, "I am very young, Mr. Menaida."

"A fault in process of rectification every day," said he, blowing through the stem of his. pipe. "I think it is clear now."

"I mean—young to be married."

"To be married! Zounds!" He turned his eyes on her in surprise, holding the tamarisk spill in one hand and the pipe in the other, poised in the air.

"You have not understood that I got Jamie off the other day only by taking full charge of him upon myself and relieving my aunt."

"But—good gracious, you are not going to marry your brother."

"My aunt would not transfer the guardianship to me unless I were qualified to undertake and exercise it properly, according to her ideas, and that could be only by my becoming engaged to be married to a man of substance."

"Goodness help me! what a startlement! And who is the happy man to be? Not Scantlebray, senior, I trust, whose wife is dying."

"No—Captain Coppinger."

"Cruel Coppinger! "Uncle Zachie put down his pipe so suddenly on the bench by him that he broke it. "Cruel Coppinger! never!"

She said nothing to this, but rose and walked, with her head down, along the bank, and put her hands among the waving pink bunches of tamarisk bloom, sweeping the heads with her own delicate, hand as she passed. Then she came back to the boat arbor and reseated herself.

"Dear me! Bless my heart! I could not have credited it," gasped Mr. Menaida, "and I had such different plans in my head—but there, no more about them."

"I had to make my election whether to take him and qualify to become Jamie's guardian, or refrain, and then he would have been snatched away and imprisoned in that odious place again."