place, and going from land to land.

"There hasn't been a more beautiful ship built here these twenty years,"
he says, in triumph.

"Oho, Mr. Conceit," said Sally, "that's only because it's yours
now--your geese are all swans. I wish you could have seen the Typhoon,
that Ben Drummond sailed in--a real handsome fellow he was. What a pity
there aren't more like him!"

"I don't enter on the merits of Ben Drummond's beauty," said Moses; "but
I don't believe the Typhoon was one whit superior to our ship. Besides,
Miss Sally, I thought you were going to take it under your especial
patronage, and let me honor it with your name."

"How absurd you always will be talking about that--why don't you call it
after Mara?"

"After Mara?" said Moses. "I don't want to--it wouldn't be
appropriate--one wants a different kind of girl to name a ship
after--something bold and bright and dashing!"

"Thank you, sir, but I prefer not to have my bold and dashing qualities
immortalized in this way," said Sally; "besides, sir, how do I know that
you wouldn't run me on a rock the very first thing? When I give my name
to a ship, it must have an experienced commander," she added,
maliciously, for she knew that Moses was specially vulnerable on this
point.

"As you please," said Moses, with heightened color. "Allow me to remark
that he who shall ever undertake to command the 'Sally Kittridge' will
have need of all his experience--and then, perhaps, not be able to know
the ways of the craft."

"See him now," said Sally, with a malicious laugh; "we are getting
wrathy, are we?"

"Not I," said Moses; "it would cost altogether too much exertion to get
angry at every teasing thing you choose to say, Miss Sally. By and by I
shall be gone, and then won't your conscience trouble you?"

"My conscience is all easy, so far as you are concerned, sir; your
self-esteem is too deep-rooted to suffer much from my poor little
nips--they produce no more impression than a cat-bird pecking at the
cones of that spruce-tree yonder. Now don't you put your hand where your
heart is supposed to be--there's nobody at home there, you know. There's
Mara coming to meet us;" and Sally bounded forward to meet Mara with all
those demonstrations of extreme delight which young girls are fond of
showering on each other.

"It's such a beautiful evening," said Mara, "and we are all in such good
spirits about Moses's ship, and I told him you must come down and hold
counsel with