ime, I fancy, old man, since you were last at sea," Wilder
coolly observed.

"Some five or six years since the last time, and fifty since the first,"
was the answer.

"Then you do not see the same causes for apprehension?" Mrs Wyllys once
more demanded.

"Old and worn out as I am, Lady, if her Captain will give me a birth
aboard her, I will thank him for the same as a favour."

"Misery seeks any relief," said Mrs de Lacey, in an under tone, and
bestowing on her companions a significant glance. "I incline to the
opinion of the younger seaman; for he supports it with substantial,
professional reasons."

Mrs Wyllys suspended her questions, just as long as complaisance to the
last speaker seemed to require and then she resumed them as follows,
addressing her next inquiry to Wilder.

"And how do you explain this difference in judgment, between two men who
ought both to be so well qualified to decide right?"

"I believe there is a well-known proverb which will answer that question,"
returned the young man, smiling: "But some allowance must be made for the
improvements in ships; and, perhaps, some little deference to the stations
we have respectively filled on board them."

"Both very true. Still, one would think the changes of half a dozen years
cannot be so very considerable, in a profession that is so exceedingly
ancient."

"Your pardon, Madam. They require constant practice to know them. Now, I
dare say that yonder worthy old tar is ignorant of the manner in which a
ship, when pressed by her canvas, is made to 'cut the waves with her
taffrail.'"

"Impossible!" cried the Admiral's widow; "the youngest and the meanest
mariner must have been struck with the beauty of such a spectacle."

"Yes, yes," returned the old tar, who wore the air of an offended man, and
who, probably, had he been ignorant of any part of his art, was not just
then in the temper to confess it; "many is the proud ship that I have seen
doing the very same; and, as the lady says, a grand and comely sight it
is!"

Wilder appeared confounded. He bit his lip, like one who was over-reached
either by excessive ignorance or exceeding cunning; but the
self-complacency of Mrs de Lacey spared him the necessity of an immediate
reply.

"It would have been an extraordinary circumstance truly," she said, "that
a man should have grown white-headed on the seas, and never have been
struck with so noble a spectacle. But then, my honest tar, you appear to
b