“As a mere passenger.  But we wives of sailors only, among our sex, can lay claim to any real knowledge of the noble profession!  What natural object is there, or can there be,” exclaimed the nautical dowager, in a burst of professional enthusiasm, “finer than a stately ship breasting the billows, as I have heard the Admiral say a thousand times, its taffrail ploughing the main, and its cut-water gliding after, like a sinuous serpent pursuing its shining wake, as a living creature choosing its path on the land, and leaving the bone under its fore-foot, a beacon for those that follow?  I know not, my dear Wyllys, if I make myself intelligible to you, but, to my instructed eye, this charming description conveys a picture of all that is grand and beautiful!”

The latent smile, on the countenance of the governess might have betrayed that she was imagining the deceased Admiral had not been altogether devoid of the waggery of his vocation, had not a slight noise, which sounded like the rustling of the wind, but which in truth was suppressed laughter, proceeded from the upper room of the tower.  The words, “It is lovely!” were still on the lips of the youthful Gertrude, who saw all the beauty of the picture her aunt had essayed to describe, without descending to the humble employment of verbal criticism.  But her voice became hushed, and her attitude that of startled attention:—­

“Did you hear nothing?” she said.

“The rats have not yet altogether deserted the mill,” was the calm reply of Wyllys.

“Mill! my dear Mrs Wyllys, will you persist in calling this picturesque ruin a mill?”

“However fatal it may be to its charms, in the eyes of eighteen, I must call it a mill.”

“Ruins are not so plenty in this country, my dear governess,” returned her pupil, laughing, while the ardour of her eye denoted how serious she was in defending her favourite opinion, “as to justify us in robbing them of any little claims to interest they may happen to possess.”

“Then, happier is the country!  Ruins in a land are, like most of the signs of decay in the human form, sad evidences of abuses and passions, which have hastened the inroads of time.  These provinces are like yourself, my Gertrude, in their freshness and their youth, and, comparatively, in their innocence also.  Let us hope for both a long, an useful, and a happy existence.”

“Thank you for myself, and for my country; but still I can never admit this picturesque ruin has been a mill.”

“Whatever it may have been, it has long occupied its present place, and has the appearance of continuing where it is much longer, which is more than can be said of our prison, as you call yonder stately ship, in which we are so soon to embark.  Unless my eyes deceive me, Madam, those masts are moving slowly past the chimnies of the town.”

“You are very right, Wyllys.  The seamen are towing the vessel into the outer harbour, where they will warp her fast to the anchors, and thus secure her, until they shall be ready to unmake their sails, in order to put to sea in the morning.  This is a manoeuvre often performed, and one which the Admiral has so clearly explained, that I should find little difficulty in superintending it in my own person, were it suitable to my sex and station.”