usurp the place of cherries and apples, and “ravens” that of gulls, in order to satisfy its cravings.  But all this was lost on Spike.  He remembered the shore as it had been twenty years before, and he saw what it was now, but little did he care for the change.  On the whole, he rather preferred the Grecian Temples, over which the ravens would have been compelled to fly, had there been any ravens in that neighbourhood, to the old-fashioned and highly respectable residence that once alone occupied the spot.  The point he did understand, however, and on the merits of which he had something to say, was a little farther ahead.  That, too, had been re-christened—­the Hallet’s Cove of the mariner being converted into Astoria—­not that bloody-minded place at the mouth of the Oregon, which has come so near bringing us to blows with our “ancestors in England,” as the worthy denizens of that quarter choose to consider themselves still, if one can judge by their language.  This Astoria was a very different place, and is one of the many suburban villages that are shooting up, like mushrooms in a night, around the great Commercial Emporium.  This spot Spike understood perfectly, and it was not likely that he should pass it without communicating a portion of his knowledge to Rose.

“There, Miss Rose,” he said, with a didactic sort of air, pointing with his short, thick finger at the little bay which was just opening to their view; “there’s as neat a cove as a craft need bring up in.  That used to be a capital place to lie in, to wait for a wind to pass the Gate; but it has got to be most too public for my taste.  I’m rural, I tell Mulford, and love to get in out-of-the-way berths with my brig, where she can see salt-meadows, and smell the clover.  You never catch me down in any of the crowded slips, around the markets, or anywhere in that part of the town, for I do love country air.  That’s Hallet’s Cove, Miss Rose, and a pretty anchorage it would be for us, if the wind and tide didn’t sarve to take us through the Gate.”

“Are we near the Gate, Capt.  Spike?” asked Rose, the fine bloom on her cheek lessening a little, under the apprehension that formidable name is apt to awaken in the breasts of the inexperienced.

“Half a mile, or so.  It begins just at the other end of this island on our larboard hand, and will be all over in about another half mile, or so.  It’s no such bad place, a’ter all, is Hell-Gate, to them that’s used to it.  I call myself a pilot in Hell-Gate, though I have no branch.”

“I wish, Capt.  Spike, I could teach you to give that place its proper and polite name.  We call it Whirl-Gate altogether now,” said the relict.

“Well, that’s new to me,” cried Spike.  “I have heard some chicken-mouthed folk say Hurl-Gate, but this is the first time I ever heard it called Whirl-Gate—­they’ll get it to Whirligig-Gate next.  I do n’t think that my old commander, Capt.  Budd, called the passage anything but honest up and down Hell-Gate.”