“Well, well, you know what I mean, Madam Budd; and so long as the parties understand each other, a word dropped, or a word put into a charter-party, makes it neither stronger nor weaker.  There’s a time, howsomever, in every man’s life, when he begins to think of settling down, and of considerin’ himself as a sort of mooring-chain, for children and the likes of them to make fast to.  Such is my natur’, I will own; and ever since I’ve got to be intimate in your family, Madam Budd, that sentiment has grown stronger and stronger in me, till it has got to be uppermost in all my idees.  Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, as a body might say.”

Mrs. Budd now looked more than interested, for she looked a little confused, and Rose began to tremble for her aunt.  It was evident that the parties most conspicuous in this scene were not at all conscious that they were overheard, the intensity of their attention being too much concentrated on what was passing to allow of any observation without their own narrow circle.  What may be thought still more extraordinary, but what in truth was the most natural of all, each of the parties was so intently bent on his, or her, own train of thought, that neither in the least suspected any mistake.

“Grown with your growth, and strengthened with your strength,” rejoined the relict, smiling kindly enough on the captain to have encouraged a much more modest man than he happened to be.

“Yes, Madam Budd—­very just that remark; grown with my strength, and strengthened with my growth, as one might say; though I’ve not done much at growing for a good many years.  Your late husband, Captain Budd, often remarked how very early I got my growth; and rated me as an `able-bodied’ hand, when most lads think it an honour to be placed among the `or’naries.’”

The relict looked grave; and she wondered at any man’s being so singular as to allude to a first husband, at the very moment he was thinking of offering himself for a second.  As for herself, she had not uttered as many words in the last four years, as she had uttered in that very conversation, without making some allusion to her “poor dear Mr. Budd.”  The reader is not to do injustice to the captain’s widow, however, by supposing for a moment that she was actually so weak as to feel any tenderness for a man like Spike, which would be doing a great wrong to both her taste and her judgment, as Rose well knew, even while most annoyed by the conversation she could not but overhear.  All that influenced the good relict was that besetting weakness of her sex, which renders admiration so universally acceptable; and predisposes a female, as it might be, to listen to a suitor with indulgence, and some little show of kindness, even when resolute to reject him.  As for Rose, to own the truth, her aunt did not give her a thought, as yet, notwithstanding Spike was getting to be so sentimental.

“Yes, your late excellent and honourable consort always said that I got my growth sooner than any youngster he ever fell in with,” resumed the captain, after a short pause; exciting fresh wonder in his companion, that he would persist in lugging in the “dear departed” so very unseasonably.  “I am a great admirer of all the Budd family, my good lady, and only wish my connection with it had never tarminated; if tarminated it can be called.”