Harry and Rose first retired to pay a little attention to their dress, and then they joined each other in a walk.  The mate had found some razors, and was clean shaved.  He had also sequestered a shirt, and made some other little additions to his attire, that contributed to give him the appearance of being, that which he really was, a very gentleman-like looking young sailor.  Rose had felt no necessity for taking liberties with the effects of others, though a good deal of female attire was found in the dwelling.  As was afterward ascertained, a family ordinarily dwelt there, but most of it had gone to Key West, on a visit, at the moment when the man and boy left in charge had fallen into the hands of the Mexicans, losing their lives in the manner mentioned.

While walking together, Harry opened his mind to Rose, on the subject which lay nearest to his heart, and which had been at the bottom of this second visit to the islets of the Dry Tortugas.  During the different visits of Wallace to the brig, the boat’s crew of the Poughkeepsie had held more or less discourse with the people of the Swash.  This usually happens on such occasions, and although Spike had endeavoured to prevent it, when his brig lay in this bay, he had not been entirely successful.  Such discourse is commonly jocular, and sometimes witty; every speech, coming from which side it may, ordinarily commencing with “shipmate,” though the interlocutors never saw each other before that interview.  In one of the visits an allusion was made to cargo, when “the pretty gal aft,” was mentioned as being a part of the cargo of the Swash.  In answer to this remark, the wit of the Poughkeepsie had told the brig’s man, “you had better send her on board us, for we carry a chaplain, a regular-built one, that will be a bishop some day or other, perhaps, and we can get her spliced to one of our young officers.”  This remark had induced the sailor of the Molly to ask if a sloop-of-war really carried such a piece of marine luxury as a chaplain, and the explanation given went to say that the clergyman in question did not properly belong to the Poughkeepsie, but was to be put on board a frigate, as soon as they fell in with one that he named.  Now, all this Mulford overheard, and he remembered it at a moment when it might be of use.  Situated as he and Rose were, he felt the wisdom and propriety of their being united, and his present object was to persuade his companion to be of the same way of thinking.  He doubted not that the sloop-of-war would come in, ere long, perhaps that very day, and he believed it would be an easy matter to induce her chaplain to perform the ceremony.  America is a country in which every facility exists, with the fewest possible impediments, to getting married; and, we regret to be compelled to add, to getting unmarried also.  There are no banns, no licenses, no consent of parents even, usually necessary, and persons who are of the age of discretion, which, as respects females and matrimony,