634 The Demon Ship. EDEC. 



was at this period seventeen, and, consequently, eight years my junior. 

 She was young, beautiful, and spoiled by a doating parent yet I saw 

 in her a fine natural disposition, and the seeds of many noble qualities. 

 To both father and daughter I openly unfolded my affection. Captain 

 Cameron, naturally, pleaded the youth of his daughter. Margaret 

 laughed at the idea of my even entertaining a thought of her, told me I 

 was two thousand years her senior, and declared she would as soon 

 think of marrying an elder brother, or even her father, as myself. I 

 listened to the assertions of Margaret with profound silence, scorned to 

 whine and plead my cause, bowed with an air of haughty resignation, 

 and left her. 



When next I saw Margaret I was in a travelling dress at her father's 

 residence. I found her alone in the garden, occupied in watering her 

 flowers. " I am come, Margaret," I said, a to bid you farewell." 

 " Why, where are you going ?" " To London, to sea, to India." 

 " Nonsense !" " You always think there is nonsense in truth ; every 

 thing that is serious to others is a jest to you." " Complimentary this 

 morning." " Adieu, Margaret, may you retain through life the same 

 heartlessness of disposition. It will preserve you from many a pang 

 that might reach a more sensitive bosom." " You do my strength of 

 mind infinite honour. Every girl of seventeen can be sentimental, but 

 there are few stoics in their teens. I love to be coldly great. You 

 charm me." " If heartlessness and mental superiority are with you 

 synonymes," I said, with gravity, " count yourself, Miss Cameron, at 

 the very acme of intellectual greatness, since you can take leave of one 

 of your earliest friends with such easy indifference." " Pooh ! pooh ! 

 I know you are not really going. This voyage to India is one of your 

 favourite threats in your dignified moments. I think, if I mistake not, 

 this is about the twentieth time it has been made. And for early 

 friends, and so forth, you have contrived to live within a few hundred 

 feet of them, without coming in their sight for the last month, so they 

 cannot be so very dear/' This was said in a slight tone of pique. 

 " Listen to me, Margaret/' said I, with a grave, and, as I think, manly 

 dignity of bearing ; " I offered you the honest and ardent, though worth- 

 less gift of a heart, whose best affections (despite your not unmarked 

 defects of character) you entirely possessed. I am not coxcomb enough 

 to suppose that I can at pleasure storm the affections of any woman ; 

 but I am man enough to expect that they should be denied me with 

 some reference to the delicate respect due to mine. But you are, of 

 course, at full liberty to choose your own mode of rejecting your suitors ; 

 only, as one who still views you as a friend, I would that that manner 

 shewed more of good womanly feeling, and less of conscious female 

 power. I am aware, Margaret, that this is not the general language of 

 lovers ; perhaps if it were, woman might hold her power more grace- 

 fully, and even Margaret Cameron's heart would have more of greatness 

 and generosity than it now possesses." While I spoke, Margaret turned 

 away her lovely face, and I saw that her very neck was suffused. I 

 began to think I had been harsh with her, to remember that she was 

 young, and that we were about to part perhaps for ever. I took her 

 hand, assured her that the journey I had announced was no lover's 

 ruse, and that I was really on the point of quitting my native land. 

 " And now, Margaret," I said, " farewell you will scarce find in life a 

 more devoted friend a more ardent desirer of your happiness than him 



