The wall enclosed the garden and pleasure-grounds of a mansion, that he now perceived was the residence of Mrs de Lacey.  A rustic summer-house which, in the proper season, had been nearly buried in leaves and flowers, stood at no great distance from the road.  By its elevation and position, it commanded a view of the town, the harbour, the isles of Massachusetts to the east, those of the Providence Plantations to the west, and, to the south, an illimitable expanse of ocean.  As it had now lost its leafy covering, there was no difficulty in looking directly into its centre, through the rude pillars which supported its little dome.  Here Wilder discovered precisely the very party to whose conversation he had been a listener the previous day, while caged, with the Rover, in the loft of the ruin.  Though the Admiral’s widow and Mrs Wyllys were most in advance, evidently addressing some one who was, like himself, in the public road, the quick eye of the young sailor soon detected the more enticing person of the blooming Gertrude, in the background.  His observations were, however, interrupted by a reply from the individual who as yet was unseen.  Directed by the voice, Wilder was next enabled to perceive the person of a man in a green old age, who, seated on a stone by the way side, appeared to be resting his weary limbs, while he answered to some interrogations from the summer-house.  Though his head was white, and the hand, which grasped a long walking-staff, sometimes trembled, as its owner sought additional support from its assistance, there was that in the costume, the manner, and the voice of the speaker, which furnished sufficient evidence of his having once been a veteran of the sea.

“Lord! your Ladyship, Ma’am,” he said, in tones that were getting tremulous, even while they retained the deep characteristic intonations of his profession, “we old sea-dogs never stop to look into an almanac, to see which way the wind will come after the next thaw, before we put to sea.  It is enough for us, that the sailing orders are aboard, and that the Captain has taken leave of his Lady.”

“Ah! the very words of the poor lamented Admiral!” exclaimed Mrs de Lacey, who evidently found great satisfaction in pursuing the discourse with this superannuated mariner.  “And then you are of opinion, honest friend, that, when a ship is ready, she should sail, whether the wind is”——­

“Here is another follower of the sea, opportunely come to lend us his advice,” interrupted Gertrude, with a hurried air, as if to divert the attention of her aunt from something very like a dogmatical termination of an argument that had just occurred between her and Mrs Wyllys; “perhaps to serve as an umpire.”

“True,” said the latter.  “Pray, what think you of the weather to-day, sir? would it be profitable to sail in such a time, or not?”

The young mariner reluctantly withdrew his eyes from the blushing Gertrude, who, in her eagerness to point him out, had advanced to the front, and was now shrinking back, timidly, to the centre of the building again, like one who already repented of her temerity.  He then fastened his look on her who put the question; and so long and riveted was his gaze, that she saw fit to repeat it, believing that what she had first said was not properly understood.