ing on the open sea, while a few
ill-fastened spars kept us from going into its depths!"

"The spars floated, and you were not drowned; else, I should have wept
bitterly, Eudora."

"But thou wilt go deeper into the country, and see more of its
beauties--its rivers, and its mountains--its caverns, and its woods. Here
all is change, while the water is ever the same."

"Surely, Eudora, you forget strangely!--Here it is all America. This
mountain is America; yonder land across the bay is America, and the
anchorage of yesterday was America. When we shall run off the coast, the
next land-fall will be England, or Holland, or Africa; and with a good
wind, we may run down the shores of two or three countries in a day."

"And on them, too, thoughtless boy! If you lose this occasion, thy life
will be wedded to hazard!"

"Farewell, Eudora!" said the urchin, raising his mouth to give and receive
the parting kiss.

"Eudora, adieu!" added a deep and melancholy voice, at her elbow. "I can
delay no longer, for my people show symptoms of impatience. Should this be
the last of my voyages to the coast, thou wilt not forget those with whom
thou hast so long shared good and evil!"

"Not yet--not yet--you will not quit us yet! Leave me the boy--leave me
some other memorial of the past, besides this pain!"

"My hour has come. The wind is freshening, and I trifle with its favor.
'Twill be better for thy happiness that none know the history of the
brigantine; and a few hours will draw a hundred curious eyes, from the
town, upon us."

"What care I for their opinions?--thou wilt not--cannot--leave me, yet!"

"Gladly would I stay, Eudora, but a seaman's home is his ship. Too much
precious time is already wasted. Once more, adieu!"

The dark eye of the girl glanced wildly about her. It seemed, as if in
that one quick and hurried look, it drank in all that belonged to the
land and its enjoyments.

"Whither go you?" she asked, scarce suffering her voice to rise above a
whisper. "Whither do you sail, and when do you return?"

"I follow fortune. My return may be distant--never!--Adieu then,
Eudora--be happy with the friends that Providence hath given thee!"

The wandering eyes of the girl of the sea became still more unsettled. She
grasped the offered hand of the free-trader in both her own, and wrung it
in an impassioned and unconscious manner. Then releasing her hold, she
opened wide her arms, and cast them convulsively about his unmov