was dodging among them, ships brought hither by the four winds of
the seas; many discharging in the stream, some in the docks then
beginning to be built, and hugging the huge warehouses. Hides from
frozen Russia were piled high beside barrels of sugar and rum from the
moist island cane-fields of the Indies, and pipes of wine from the
sunny hillsides of France, and big boxes of tea bearing the hall-mark of
the mysterious East. Dolly gazed in wonder. And I was commanded to show
her a schooner like the Black Moll, and a brigantine like the John.

"And Captain Paul told me you climbed the masts, Richard, and worked like
a common seaman. Tell me," says she, pointing at the royal yard of a
tall East Indiaman, "did you go as high as that when it was rough?"

And, hugely to the boatman's delight, the minx must needs put her fingers
on the hard welts on my hands, and vow she would be a sailor and she were
a man. But at length we came to a trim-built bark lying off Redriff
Stairs, with the words "Betsy, of London," painted across her stern. In
no time at all, Captain Paul was down the gangway ladder and at the
water-side, too hand Dorothy out.

"This honour overwhelms me, Miss Manners," he said; "but I know whom to
thank for it." And he glanced slyly at me.

Dorothy stepped aboard with the air of Queen Elizabeth come to inspect
Lord Howard's flagship.

"Then you will thank me," said she. "Why, I could eat my dinner off your
deck, captain! Are all merchantmen so clean?"

John Paul smiled.

"Not all, Miss Manners," he said.

"And you are still sailing at the ebb?" I asked.

"In an hour, Richard, if the wind holds good."

With what pride he showed us over his ship, the sailors gaping at the
fine young lady. It had taken him just a day to institute his navy
discipline. And Dolly went about exclaiming, and asking an hundred
questions, and merrily catechising me upon the run of the ropes. All was
order and readiness for dropping down the stream when he led us into his
cabin, where he had a bottle of wine and some refreshments laid out
against my coming.

"Had I presumed to anticipate your visit, Miss Manners, I should have had
something more suitable for a lady," he said. "What, you will not eat,
either, Richard?"

I could not, so downcast had I become at the thought of parting.
I had sat up half the night before with him in restless argument and
indecision, and even when he had left for Rotherhithe, early that
morning,