your usual appellation--"

"That might depend on circumstances. I have been known by different names
in different situations However, if you call me Wilder, I shall not fail
to answer."

"Wilder!" a good name; though, I dare say, it would have been as true were
it Wildone. You young ship-boys have the character of being a little
erratic in your humours at times. How many tender hearts have you left to
sigh for your errors, amid shady bowers, while you have been
ploughing--that is the word, I believe--ploughing the salt-sea ocean?"

"Few sigh for me," returned Wilder, thoughtfully, though he evidently
began to chafe a little under this free sort of catechism. "Let us now
return to our study of the tower. What think you has been its object?"

"Its present use is plain, and its former use can be no great mystery. It
holds at this moment two light hearts; and, if I am not mistaken, as many
light heads, not overstocked with the stores of wisdom. Formerly it had
its granaries of corn, at least, and, I doubt not, certain little
quadrupeds, who were quite as light of fingers as we are of head and
heart. In plain English, it has been a mill"

"There are those who think it had been a fortress."

"Hum! The place might do, at need," returned he in green, casting a rapid
and peculiar glance around him. "But mill it has been, notwithstanding one
might wish it a nobler origin. The windy situation the pillars to keep off
the invading vermin, the shape, the air, the very complexion, prove it.
Whir-r-r, whir-r-r; there has been clatter enough here in time past, I
warrant you. Hist! It is not done yet!"

Stepping lightly to one of the little perforations which had once served
as windows to the tower, he cautiously thrust his head through the
opening; and, after gazing there half a minute, he withdrew it again,
making a gesture to the attentive Wilder to be silent. The latter
complied; nor was it long before the nature of the interruption was
sufficiently explained.

The silvery voice of woman was first heard at a little distance; and then,
as the speakers drew nigher the sounds arose directly from beneath, within
the very shadow of the tower. By a sort of tacit consent, Wilder and the
barrister chose spots favourable to the execution of such a purpose; and
each continued, during the time the visiters remained near the ruin,
examining their persons, unseen themselves, and we are sorry we must do so
much violence to the breeding of