een somewhat lenient with you.
I might have kept you in irons, had I not run you up to the yard-arm,
in return for the trick you wished to play with me."

"Well, now, mister, how did you find all that out?" quoth my friend,
looking me coolly in the face.

"Never mind," I answered, tickled by his impudence. "Man the pumps."
And I made him work away, as he deserved, as long as he could stand. I
kept a look-out for the Lady Parker, and felt not a little anxious as to
what had become of her. I should have liked to have passed much more of
my time than I did in the cabin, but I was afraid of intruding on my
passengers. I believe they fully appreciated my delicacy. Several
times during the day Miss Carlyon ventured on deck, and seemed to enjoy
gazing on the stormy, foam-crested seas. I stood by her side and
supported her as the little vessel plunged into the troughs, and rose
again buoyantly to their summits.

"This is very fine," she exclaimed enthusiastically. "I do think the
life of a sailor must be very delightful, Mr Hurry. Had I my choice, I
would select it above all others."

"You may be a sailor's wife, though you cannot be a sailor," came to the
tip of my tongue, but I did not utter the words; instead of them I said,
looking at her beautiful countenance, and admiring its animation, "I
love it dearly, and would not change it for any other, Miss Carlyon,
though it has its shadows as well as its sunshine."

"Ah, yes, but I always look at the _sunny_ side of every picture," she
remarked, smiling sweetly.

"You cannot help that. The light you see shed over everything is but
the reflection from yourself!" I blushed as I felt an expression so
different from my usual matter-of-fact style drawn from my lips.

Miss Carlyon looked up with a bright glance, (not smiling exactly), as
much as to say, "What is that about?" She was not, I thought,
displeased, but I did not venture anything of the sort again. I found
myself led by degrees to tell her all about myself, and my early life,
and my adventures, and then I described the sea under its various
aspects, and I went on to talk about ships of different classes, and how
to rig them, and the names of the ropes and sails and spars. She told
me, in return, a good deal about herself and her family, and her likes
and dislikes and occupations. Her father had property, I found, between
the Chesapeake and Potomac rivers in Virginia, where she had generally
resided. S