king after the
lawyer's carriage with a slight choking in his throat, till the
skipper's gruff "Get aboard here, lad!" warned him that the "Gull" was
about to cast off. Slowly the wharf glided away, and the little
coasting vessel stood out into the channel. The city spread itself out
behind them, a long maze of brick and slate, with spires and domes
showing dimly through the blue haze which wrapped them about. On the
far, watery horizon lay a belt of vapory clouds which presently began
to rend and tear and float off in ragged masses, and then a great red
sun gleamed through and made a golden roadway across the sea, and
transformed the misty fleeces of vapor to wonderful hangings of
amethyst, streaked with great threads of scarlet.

"Jes' sunrise!" muttered the skipper; "make the best o' this 'ere
breeze, eh, Jack?"

"Ay," drawled the mate, "we'll catch it afore long, skipper."

The city's old cold front suddenly gleamed out in vivid gold, the
spires grew rosy in the first rays of sunlight, and, all its dimness
and dulness gone, Hastings lay gleaming and glowing in the fair
morning light like some vision of fairyland.

Noll Trafford, sitting on a great bale of merchandise near the stern
of the "Gull," gazed at the city, slowly sinking and fading in the
sea, with a feeling somewhat akin to homesickness. It had never looked
so bright to him before as at this moment of his departure from it,
and he was leaving behind a great many friends--all his school
acquaintances, all the scenes and haunts that were dear to him--to
go--where? He hardly knew, himself, but his bright fancy had pictured
Culm as some pleasant little sea town, where there would, perhaps, be
a great beach to ramble upon and hunt for minerals and shells, and
where he would soon make plenty of new acquaintances. And Uncle
Richard he had pictured to himself as a gentle, kind man,--grave,
perhaps, but who would love him and try to fill the place of his own
dead father. So, with these bright visions filling his mind, it was
little wonder that he turned from the stern, after Hastings had faded
into the merest blue dot on the horizon-line, and looked forward to
the time when the journey's end should be reached, with happy
anticipations. Before them lay the vast and boundless sea, with no
trace of shore or island save a low blue belt in the south, like a
cloud, and the "Gull" began to pitch and toss somewhat with the great
ocean-swell. Skipper Ben, havin