“That it has been so done, I can testify,” resumed the Admiral’s widow, adhering a little pertinaciously to a train of thoughts, which, once thoroughly awakened in her bosom, was not easily diverted into another channel, “since my late estimable and (I feel certain all who hear me will acquiesce when I add) gallant husband once conducted a squadron of his Royal Master, from one extremity of his Majesty’s American dominions to the other, in a time less than that named by my niece:  It may have made some difference in his speed that he was in pursuit of the enemies of his King and country, but still the fact proves that the voyage can be made within the month.”

“There is that dreadful Henlopen, with its sandy shoals and shipwrecks on one hand, and that stream they call the Gulf on the other!” exclaimed Gertrude, with a shudder, and a burst of natural female terror, which makes timidity sometimes attractive, when exhibited in the person of youth and beauty.  “If it were not for Henlopen, and its gales, and its shoals, and its gulfs, I could think only of the pleasure of meeting my father.”

Mrs Wyllys, who never encouraged her pupil in those, natural weaknesses, however pretty and be coming they might appear to other eyes, turned with a steady mien to the young lady, as she remarked, with a brevity and decision that were intended to put the question of fear at rest for ever,—­

“If all the dangers you appear to apprehend existed in reality, the passage would not be made daily or even hourly, in safety.  You have often, Madam, come from the Carolinas by sea, in company with Admiral de Lacey?”

“Never,” the widow promptly and a little drily remarked.  “The water has not agreed with my constitution, and I have never neglected to journey by land.  But then you know, Wyllys, as the consort and relict of a flag-officer, it was not seemly that I should be ignorant of naval science.  I believe there are few ladies in the British empire who are more familiar with ships, either singly or in squadron particularly the latter, than myself.  This in formation I have naturally acquired, as the companion of an officer, whose fortune it was to lead fleets.  I presume these are matters of which you are profoundly ignorant.”

The calm, dignified countenance of Wyllys, on which it would seem as if long cherished and painful recollections had left a settled, but mild expression of sorrow, that rather tempered than destroyed the traces of character which were still remarkable in her firm collected eye, became clouded, for a moment, with a deeper shade of melancholy.  After hesitating, as if willing to change the subject, she replied,—­

“I have not been altogether a stranger to the sea.  It has been my lot to have made many long, and some perilous voyages.”