pleased, thereby causing deep
disappointment to those who had befriended him, and sore grief to his
poor mother, who would be utterly at a loss to account for his strange
disappearance.

It never entered into Captain Afleck's easy-going mind to inquire
whether Terry ought to ask permission of somebody before taking service
as cabin-boy on board his schooner. He himself had no family ties of
any kind, and he took it for granted that other people were in the same
position, unless they claimed something to the contrary. So when Terry
jumped aboard the _Sea-Slipper_, thereby signifying acceptance of his
offer, that was an end of the matter so far as he was concerned.

Once committed to the going away, Terry was all impatience for the
schooner to start; and the stretching of the hour Captain Afleck had
just mentioned into two gave him a good deal of concern, as every
minute he dreaded the appearance of some clerk from Drummond's, perhaps
even Mr. Hobart himself, sent to look after him.

He would have liked very much to have hidden in the cabin until the
schooner had got well away from the wharf, but he was wise enough to
realize that so doing might arouse the captain's suspicions, and lead
him summarily to cancel the engagement.

However, at last his anxiety on this score was put at rest by the
_Sea-Slipper_ warping slowly out into the stream; and then, as the big
sails were hoisted, and they bellied out with the afternoon breeze, she
glided off on a tack across the harbour that soon put a wide distance
between her and the wharves.

No fear of being followed now. Terry was as safe from that as though
he were already in Boston; and in the mingled feelings with which, from
the stern of the schooner, he watched the line of wharves losing their
distinctness, and the rows of houses melting into one dark mass against
the sloping, citadel-crowned hill, there was no small proportion of
relief.

He had solved the problem so suddenly presented that afternoon in a
very poor and unsatisfactory fashion, it is true. Still, it was solved
for the present at least; and bearing in mind Terry's training and
opportunities for moral culture, he must not be too hardly judged for
the folly of his action.

By the time the fast-sailing schooner had passed Meagher's Beach Light,
and was beginning to rise and pitch in the long ocean billows, Terry,
with all the heedlessness of boyhood, had thrown his cares to the wind,
and given himself u