sixth week, the last nail had been driven, and the last lick of
paint was dry. In the result, Priscilla was as happy as a bride has a
right to be.

Across the very stern of the ship, with windows looking out upon the
wake, ran what might have been called a sitting room. It was perhaps
twenty feet wide and eight feet deep; and its rear wall--formed by the
overhanging stern--sloped outward toward the ceiling. Against this slope,
beneath the three windows, a broad, cushioned bench was built, to serve
as couch or seat. The bench was broken in one place to make room for
Joel's desk, and the cabinet wherein he kept his records and his
instruments. Priss had put curtains on the windows; and she had a lily,
in a pot, at one of them, and a clump of pansies at another. Joel's cabin
opened off this compartment, on the starboard side; hers was opposite.
The main cabin, with its folding table built about the thick butt of the
mizzenmast, had been extended forward to make room for the enlargement of
this stern apartment; and the mates were quartered off this main cabin.
The galley and the store rooms were on the main deck, in the after house,
on either side of the awkward "walking wheel" by which the ship was
steered; and the cabin companion was just forward of this wheel.

There were aboard the _Nathan Ross_ about thirty men, all told; but the
most of them were not of Priscilla's world. The foremast hands never came
aft of the try works, save on tasks assigned; and the secondary
officers--boat-steerers and the like--slept in the steerage and kept
forward of the boathouse. Thus the after deck was shared only by
Priscilla and Joel, the mates, the cook, and old Aaron, who was a man of
many privileges.

This world, Priscilla ruled. Joel adored her; Jim Finch gave her the
clumsy homage of a puppy--and was at times just as oppressively amiable.
Old Aaron talked to her by the hour, while he went about his work. And
the other mates--Varde, the sullen; and Hooper, who was old and losing
his grip; and Dick Morrell, who was young and finding his--paid her the
respect that was her due. Young Morrell--he was not even as old as she
was--helped her on her first climb to the mast head. He was only a
boy.... The girl, when the first homesick pangs were past, was happy.

Until the day they killed their whale, a seventy-barrel cachalot cow who
died as peaceably as a chicken, with only a convulsive flop or two when
the lances found the life. Priscil