rade must be strong, when it finds the materials of
commerce, in a solitude like this."

"Thou hast divined the reason, child. Thy father Monsieur de Barberie had
his peculiar opinions on the subject, and doubtless he did not fail to
transmit some of them to his offspring. And yet, when the Huguenot was
driven from his chateau and his clayey Norman lands, the man had no
distaste, himself, for an account-current, provided the balance was in his
own favor. Nations and characters! I find but little difference, after
all, in trade; whether it be driven with a Mohawk for his pack of furs, or
with a Seigneur, who has been driven from his lands. Each strives to get
the profit on his own side of the account, and the loss on that of his
neighbor. So rest thee well, girl; and remember that matrimony is no more
than a capital bargain, on whose success depends the sum-total of a
woman's comfort--and so once more, good night."

La belle Barberie attended her uncle, dutifully to the door of her
pavilion, which she bolted after him; and then, finding her little
apartment gloomy by the light of the small and feeble lamp he had left,
she was pleased to bring its flame in contact with the wicks of the two
candles he had just extinguished. Placing the three, near each other, on a
table, the maiden again drew nigh a window. The unexpected interview with
the Alderman had consumed several minutes, and she was curious to know
more of the unaccountable movements of the mysterious vessel.

The same deep silence reigned about the villa, and the slumbering ocean
was heaving and setting as heavily as before. Alida again looked for the
boat of Ludlow; but her eye ran over the whole distance of the bright and
broad streak, between her and the cruiser, in vain. There was the slight
ripple of the water in the glittering of the moon's rays, but no speck,
like that the barge would make, was visible. The lantern still shone at
the cruiser's peak. Once, indeed, she thought the sound of oars was again
to be heard, and much nearer than before; and yet no effort of her quick
and roving sight could detect the position of the boat. But to all these
doubts succeeded an alarm which sprang from a new and very different
source.

The existence of the inlet, which united the ocean with the waters of the
Cove, was but little known, except to the few whose avocations kept them
near the spot. The pass being much more than half the time closed, its
varying character,