lad to hear, however, sir,
that Willow Cove is moored head and starn in the family, as one might say,
and that the bloody mortgage is cut adrift."

"I am glad to hear this, Mr. Marble," I answered, submitting to a twinge,
as I remembered that a mortgage had just been placed on my own paternal
acres; "and I trust the place will long remain in your blood. How did you
leave your mother and niece?"

"I've not left 'em at all, sir. I brought the old lady and Kitty to town
with me, on what I call the mutual sight-seeing principle. They are both
up at my boarding-house."

"I am not certain, Moses, that I understand this mutual principle, of
which you speak."

"God bless you, Miles," returned the mate, who could presume to be
familiar, again, now we had walked so far aft as not to have any
listeners; "call me Moses as often as you possibly can, for it's little I
hear of that pleasant sound now. Mother will dub me Oloff, and little
Kitty calls me nothing but uncle. After all, I have a bulrush feelin'
about me, and Moses will always seem the most nat'ral. As for the mutual
principle, it is just this; I'm to show mother the Dawn, one or two of the
markets--for, would you believe it, the dear old soul never saw a market
and is dying to visit one, and so I shall take her to see the Bear first,
and the Oswego next, and the Fly last, though she cries out ag'in a market
that is much visited by flies. Then I must introduce her to one of the
Dutch churches;--after that 't will go hard with me, but I get the dear
soul into the theatre; and they tell me there is a lion, up town, that
will roar as loud as a bull. _That_ she must see, of course."

"And when your mother has seen all these sights, what will she have to
show you?"

"The tombstone on which I was laid out, as a body might say, at five
weeks old. She tells me they traced the stone, out of feelin' like, and
followed it up until they fairly found it, set down as the head-stone of
an elderly single lady, with a most pious and edifying inscription on it.
Mother says it contains a whole varse from the bible! That stone may yet
stand me in hand, for anything I know to the contrary, Miles."

I congratulated my mate on this important discovery, and inquired the
particulars of the affair with the old usurer; in what manner the money
was received, and by what process the place had been so securely "moored,
head and starn, in the family."

"It was all plain sailing when a fellow got