elf perfectly contented with her betrothed's plans,
considering, as she did, that he would know best; but she was all the
better pleased, she wrote, that he was going to an uninhabited island,
as then he would be unable to come across other girls, who might blot
her image from his heart.

"The little stupid!" as Fritz said fondly to himself when he read
this,--"as if that were possible, the darling!"

If Madaleine, however, could have known that, when she penned those
words, Master Fritz was engaged making himself agreeable to a party of
New York belles who had come up from the stifling "Empire City" to see
their cousins the Browns and sniff the bracing sea breezes of
Narraganset Bay, she might not have been quite so easy in her mind!

But, she need not have alarmed herself much, for Fritz was too busily
engaged, along with Eric, in helping Captain Brown to prepare the
_Pilot's Bride_ for her forthcoming voyage, to spare much time to the
fascinating fair ladies from Fifth Avenue.

The elder brother could do but little to aid the skipper in a nautical
way; still, as a clerk, he proved himself of great assistance, attending
to all the captain's correspondence and acting as a sort of supercargo.

Eric, however, having now had considerable experience of the sea,
besides, as the skipper had said, being "a born sailor," came out in
strong colours in all those minutiae required in getting a vessel ready
for sea.

Really, he showed himself so active and intelligent that the skipper
looked upon him as "his right-hand man"--at least, so declared he one
day in the presence of Mrs Brown, Celia, and the entire family at the
shanty, in full and open conclave; and no one disputed his statement,
albeit Master Eric was sadly confused at the compliment.

But, how was it with the ship, in which, like twin Caesars, the brothers
were about to embark "all their fortunes?"

Well, the _Pilot's Bride_, after going into dry dock and discharging
cargo on her return home, first had her sheathing stripped and the
exterior of her hull carefully examined to see that no rotten timber-
work should be overlooked that might subsequently be fatal to her when
battling with the billows in mid-ocean. She had then been recaulked and
coppered; besides having her rigging set up again and tarred down, as
well as the coverings and seizings replaced, and the chaffing gear paid
over. Finally, on the yards being sent up and the rigging completed,
with all