ith a glance far
less assured and direct than he had given to Sally.

"You won't be afraid to climb the ladders, Mara?" said he.

"Not if you help me," she said.

Sally and Tom Hiers had already walked on toward the vessel, she
ostentatiously chatting and laughing with him. Moses's brow clouded a
little, and Mara noticed it. Moses thought he did not care for Sally; he
knew that the little hand that was now lying on his arm was the one he
wanted, and yet he felt vexed when he saw Sally walk off triumphantly
with another. It was the dog-in-the-manger feeling which possesses
coquettes of both sexes. Sally, on all former occasions, had shown a
marked preference for him, and professed supreme indifference to Tom
Hiers.

"It's all well enough," he said to himself, and he helped Mara up the
ladders with the greatest deference and tenderness. "This little woman
is worth ten such girls as Sally, if one only could get her heart. Here
we are on our ship, Mara," he said, as he lifted her over the last
barrier and set her down on the deck. "Look over there, do you see Eagle
Island? Did you dream when we used to go over there and spend the day
that you ever would be on _my_ ship, as you are to-day? You won't be
afraid, will you, when the ship starts?"

"I am too much of a sea-girl to fear on anything that sails in water,"
said Mara with enthusiasm. "What a splendid ship! how nicely it all
looks!"

"Come, let me take you over it," said Moses, "and show you my cabin."

Meanwhile the graceful little vessel was the subject of various comments
by the crowd of spectators below, and the clatter of workmen's hammers
busy in some of the last preparations could yet be heard like a shower
of hail-stones under her.

"I hope the ways are well greased," said old Captain Eldritch. "'Member
how the John Peters stuck in her ways for want of their being greased?"

"Don't you remember the Grand Turk, that keeled over five minutes after
she was launched?" said the quavering voice of Miss Ruey; "there was
jist such a company of thoughtless young creatures aboard as there is
now."

"Well, there wasn't nobody hurt," said Captain Kittridge. "If Mis'
Kittridge would let me, I'd be glad to go aboard this 'ere, and be
launched with 'em."

"I tell the Cap'n he's too old to be climbin' round and mixin' with
young folks' frolics," said Mrs. Kittridge.

"I suppose, Cap'n Pennel, you've seen that the ways is all right," said
Captain Broad, returning