“Why, uncle,” said the deeply-interested girl, “all this oil is spermaceti!  It is worth a great deal more than so much of that which comes of the right whale.”

“More!  Ay, nearly as three for one.  Hunt me up the last Spectator, girl—­hunt me up the last Spectator, and let me see at once at what they quote spalm.”

Mary soon found the journal, and handed it to her uncle.

“Yes, here it is, and quoted $1.12-1/2 per gallon, as I live!  That’s nine shillings a gallon, Mary—­just calculate on that bit of paper—­thirty times one hundred and seventy-seven, Mary; how much is that, child?”

“I make it 5310, uncle—­yes, that is right.  But what are the 30 times for, sir?”

“Gallons, gal, gallons.  Each barrel has 30 gallons in it, if not more.  There ought to be 32 by rights, but this is a cheating age.  Now, multiply 5310 by 9, and see what that comes to.”

“Just 47,790, sir, as near as I can get it.”

“Yes, that’s the shillings.  Now, divide 47,790 by 8, my dear.  Be actyve, Mary, be actyve.”

“It leaves 5973, with a remainder of 6, sir.  I believe I’m right.”

“I dare say you are, child; yes, I dare say you are.  This is the dollars.  A body may call them $6000, as the barrels will a little overrun the 30 gallons.  My share of this will be two-thirds, and that will nett the handsome sum of, say $4000!”

The deacon rubbed his hands with delight, and having found his voice again, his niece was astonished at hearing him utter what he had to say, with a sort of glee that sounded in her ears as very unnatural, coming from him.  So it was, however, and she dutifully endeavoured not to think of it.

“Four thousand dollars, Mary, will quite cover the first cost of the schooner; that is without including outfit and spare-rigging, of which her master took about twice as much as was necessary.  He’s a capital fellow, is that young Gar’ner, and will make an excellent husband, as I’ve always told you, child.  A little wasteful, perhaps, but an excellent youth at the bottom.  I dare say he lost his spars off Cape Hatteras in trying to outsail that Daggett; but I overlook all that now.  He’s a capital youth to work upon a whale or a sea-elephant!  There isn’t his equal, as I’ll engage, in all Ameriky, if you’ll only let him know where to find the creatur’s.  I knew his character before I engaged him; for no man but a real skinner shall ever command a craft of mine.”

“Roswell is a good fellow,” answered Mary, with emphasis, the tears filling her eyes as she listened to these eulogiums of her uncle on the youth she loved with all of a woman’s tenderness, at the very moment she scrupled to place her happiness on one whose ‘God was not her God.’  “No one knows him better than I, uncle, and no one respects him more.  But, had I not better read the rest of his letter?—­there is a good deal more of it.”

“Go on, child, go on—­but, read the part over again where he speaks of the quantity of the ile he has shipped to Fish & Grinnell.”