indness the more grateful
for memories of bitter days in England and of far-away tragic days in
France. With some effort to suppress emotion, he touched the captain's
knee, saying, "Ah, my mother will enjoy the fresh food." And then, "What
land is that?"

"Lewes, sir, and the sand-dunes. With the flood and a fair wind, we
shall be off Chester by evening to-morrow. No night sailing for me on
this bay, with never a light beyond Henlopen, and that's been there
since '65. I know it all in daytime like I know my hand. Most usually we
bide for the flood. I shall be right sorry to part with you. I've had
time and again--Frenchies; I never took to them greatly,--but you're
about half English. Why, you talk 'most as well as me. Where did you
learn to be so handy with it?" De Courval smiled at this doubtful
compliment.

"When my father was attached to our embassy in London,--that was when I
was a lad,--I went to an English school, and then, too, we were some
months in England, my mother and I, so I speak it fairly well. My mother
never would learn it."

"Fairly well! Guess you do."

Then the talk fell away, and at last the younger man rose and said, "I
shall go to bed early, for I want to be up at dawn to see this great
river."

At morning, with a fair wind and the flood, the _Morning Star_ moved up
the stream, past the spire and houses of Newcastle. De Courval watched
with a glass the green country, good for fruit, and the hedges in place
of fences. He saw the low hills of Delaware, the flat sands of Jersey
far to right, and toward sunset of a cloudless May day heard the clatter
of the anchor chain as they came to off Chester Creek. The mother was
better, and would be glad to take her supper on deck, as the captain
desired. During the day young De Courval asked numberless questions of
mates and men, happy in his mother's revival, and busy with the hopes
and anxieties of a stranger about to accept life in a land altogether
new to him, but troubled with unanswerable doubts as to how his mother
would bear an existence under conditions of which as yet neither he nor
she had any useful knowledge.

When at sunset he brought his mother on deck, she looked about her with
pleasure. The ship rode motionless on a faintly rippled plain of orange
light. They were alone on this great highway to the sea. To the left
near by were the clustered houses on creek and shore where Dutch, Swede,
and English had ruled in turn. There were lads i