of the character of her recent life and duties. Her
walk was between a waddle and a seaman's roll; her hands were
discolored with tar, and had got to be full of knuckles, and even her
feet had degenerated into that flat, broad-toed form that, perhaps,
sooner distinguishes caste, in connection with outward appearances,
than any one other physical peculiarity. Yet this being _had_ once
been young--had once been even _fair_; and had once possessed that
feminine air and lightness of form, that as often belongs to the
youthful American of her sex, perhaps, as to the girl of any other
nation on earth. Rose continued to gaze at her companion for some
time, when she walked musingly to a window that looked out upon the
port.

"I am not certain whether it would do him good or not to see this
sight," she said, addressing the wife kindly, doubtful of the effect
of her words even on the latter. "But here are the sloop-of-war, and
several other vessels."

"Ay, she is _there_; but never will his foot be put on board the Swash
ag'in. When he bought that brig I was still young, and agreeable to
him; and he gave her my maiden name, which was Mary, or Molly Swash.
But that is all changed; I wonder he did not change the name with his
change of feelin's."

"Then you did really sail in the brig in former times, and knew the
seaman whose name you assumed?"

"Many years. Tier, with whose name I made free, on account of his
size, and some resemblance to me in form, died under my care; and his
protection fell into my hands, which first put the notion into my head
of hailing as his representative. Yes, I knew Tier in the brig, and we
were left ashore at the same time--I, intentionally, I make no
question; he, because Stephen Spike was in a hurry, and did not choose
to wait for a man. The poor fellow caught the yellow fever the very
next day, and did not live eight-and-forty hours. So the world goes;
them that wish to live, die; and them that wants to die, live!"

"You have had a hard time for one of your sex, poor Jack--quite twenty
years a sailor, did you not tell me?"

"Every day of it, Miss Rose--and bitter years have they been; for the
whole of that time have I been in chase of my husband, keeping my own
secret, and slaving like a horse for a livelihood."

"You could not have been old when he left--that is--when you parted."

"Call it by its true name, and say at once, when he desarted me. I was
under thirty by two or three years, a