learned there was something wrong with her machinery. In fact,
after due consultation, the captain decided to put back.

This irritated and distressed Mrs. Falcon so that the captain, desirous
to oblige her, hailed a fast schooner, that tacked across her bows, and
gave Mrs. Falcon the option of going back with him, or going on in the
schooner, with whose skipper he was acquainted.

Staines advised her on no account to trust to sails, when she could have
steam with only a delay of four or five days; but she said, "Anything
sooner than go back. I can't, I can't on such an errand."

Accordingly she was put on board the schooner, and Staines, after some
hesitation, felt bound to accompany her.

It proved a sad error. Contrary winds assailed them the very next day,
and with such severity that they had repeatedly to lie to.

On one of these occasions, with a ship reeling under them like a restive
horse, and the waves running mountains high, poor Phoebe's terrors
overmastered both her hostility and her reserve. "Doctor," said she, "I
believe 'tis God's will we shall never see England. I must try and die
more like a Christian than I have lived, forgiving all who have wronged
me, and you, that have been my good friend and my worst enemy, but you
did not mean it. Sir, what has turned me against you so--your wife was
my husband's sweetheart before he married me."

"My wife your husband's--you are dreaming."

"Nay, sir, once she came to my shop, and I saw directly I was nothing to
him, and he owned it all to me; he had courted her, and she jilted him;
so he said. Why should he tell me a lie about that? I'd lay my life 'tis
true. And now you have sent him to her your own self; and, at sight of
her, I shall be nothing again. Well, when this ship goes down, they can
marry, and I hope he will be happy, happier than I can make him, that
tried my best, God knows."

This conversation surprised Staines not a little. However, he said, with
great warmth, it was false. His wife had danced and flirted with some
young gentleman at one time, when there was a brief misunderstanding
between him and her, but sweetheart she had never had, except him. He
courted her fresh from school. "Now, my good soul," said he, "make your
mind easy; the ship is a good one, and well handled, and in no danger
whatever, and my wife is in no danger from your husband. Since you and
your brother tell me that he is a villain, I am bound to believe you.
But my wif