of various shapes and sizes, at some
distance from the ship, which caused much anxiety to the captain,
although they were only a source of admiration to our young friends in
the main-top.

"Tom," said Fred, breaking a long silence, "it may seem a strange idea
to you, but, do you know, I cannot help fancying that heaven must be
something like this."

"I'm not sure that that's such a strange idea, Fred, for it has two of
the characteristics of heaven in it--peace and rest."

"True; that didn't strike me. Do you know, I wish that it were always
calm like this, and that we had no wind at all."

Tom smiled. "Your voyage would be a long one if that were to happen. I
dare say the Esquimaux would join with you in the wish, however, for
their kayaks and oomiaks are better adapted for a calm than a stormy
sea."

"Tom," said Fred, breaking another long silence, "you're very tiresome
and stupid tonight; why don't you talk to me?"

"Because this delightful dreamy evening inclines me to think and be
silent."

"Ah, Tom! that's your chief fault. You are always inclined to think too
much, and to talk too little. Now I, on the contrary, am always--"

"Inclined to talk too much, and think too little; eh, Fred?"

"Bah! don't try to be funny, man; you haven't it in you. Did you ever
see such a miserable set of creatures as the old Esquimaux women are, at
Uppernavik?"

"Why, what put _them_ into your head?" enquired Tom, laughing.

"Yonder iceberg; look at it! There's the nose and chin, exactly, of the
extraordinary hag you gave your silk pocket-handkerchief to at parting.
Now, I never saw such a miserable old woman as that before; did you?"

Tom Singleton's whole demeanour changed, and his dark eyes brightened as
the strongly marked brows frowned over them, while he replied: "Yes,
Fred, I have seen old women more miserable than that. I have seen women
so old that their tottering limbs could scarcely support them, going
about in the bitterest November winds, with clothing too scant to cover
their wrinkled bodies, and so ragged and filthy, that you would have
shrunk from touching it--I have seen such groping about among heaps of
filth that the very dogs looked at, and turned away as if in disgust."

Fred was inclined to laugh at his friend's sudden change of manner, but
there was something in the young surgeon's character--perhaps its deep
earnestness--that rendered it impossible, at least for his friends, to
be jocul