slender,
blue-eyed and golden-haired woman who was the partner of his first
matrimonial venture.

They had in the beginning led a turtle-dovey kind of life in those old
days on the shores of Port Jackson. Not long after their marriage the
shipping firm in which he was employed failed, and he had to seek for
another billet; and, being an energetic, self-reliant man, with no
false pride, he shipped as steward on board the _Noord Brabant_, a
hogged-backed, heartbroken and worn-out American lumber ship running
between Puget Sound and the Australian colonies. His wife had cried a
little at first; but he told her that no one but their two selves would
know, and it was better for him to be earning five pounds a month than
idling about in Sydney.

On board the crazy old barque he found an acquaintance, who soon became
a friend. This was the second mate--another Sydney man--who had shipped
on the _Noord Brabant_ because berths on good ships were scarce and
mates and skippers were plentiful. So the two men, while the ship was
being patched up for her long voyage across the Pacific, spent their
evenings together at Masters's house.

Harry Laurance--that was the second mate's name--was a fine, handsome
man, with clear, honest eyes and a merry, infectious laugh, and those
evenings at his friend's house were a source of unalloyed happiness
to him, for from his boyhood he had known no home except a ship or a
squalid boarding-house.

One night, as the three sat together in Masters's little four-roomed
cottage, and Nellie Masters had ceased playing upon the rattling
fifteen-guinea box of discord called a piano, the three made plans for
the future. When they--Masters and Laurance--returned from Puget Sound,
they were not to part. Laurance, who had had long experience in the
Island trade, had saved a little money--not much (as he told Masters one
day when he placed ten sovereigns in the latter's hand, and asked him
to accept it as a loan for his wife's sake), but nearly enough to buy a
little thirty-ton vessel he knew of which was for sale, and which would
be just the craft to run on trading voyages from New Zealand among the
islands of the Gambier Group--if they could load her with trade goods.
And he knew a man in Puget Sound who, he thought, would lend him a
few hundreds, and take a third share in the venture. Then, when he and
Masters returned from the impending voyage to Sydney, they, with Mrs
Masters, would go over to Auckland