“He may have seen more, in his time, than myself Madam; but I doubt whether he can, just now see as well.  This is something of a distance to discover the merits or demerits of a ship:  I have been higher.”

“Then you really think there is danger to be apprehended sir?” demanded the soft voice of Gertrude whose fears had gotten the better of her diffidence.

“I do.  Had I mother, or sister,” touching his hat, and bowing to his fair interrogator, as he uttered the latter word with much emphasis, “I would hesitate to let her embark in that ship.  On my honour Ladies, I do assure you, that I think this very vessel in more danger than any ship which has left, or probably will leave, a port in the Provinces this autumn.”

“This is extraordinary!” observed Mrs Wyllys.  “It is not the character we have received of the vessel, which has been greatly exaggerated, or she is entitled to be considered as uncommonly convenient and safe.  May I ask, sir, on what circumstances you have founded this opinion?”

“They are sufficiently plain.  She is too lean in the harping, and too full in the counter, to steer.  Then, she in as wall-sided as a church, and stows too much above the water-line.  Besides this, she carries no head-sail, but all the press upon her will be aft, which will jam her into the wind, and, more than likely, throw her aback.  The day will come when that ship will go down stern foremost.”

His auditors listened to this opinion, which Wilder delivered in an oracular and very decided manner, with that sort of secret faith, and humble dependence, which the uninstructed are so apt to lend to the initiated in the mysteries of any imposing profession.  Neither of them had certainly a very clear perception of his meaning; but there were, apparently, danger and death in his very words Mrs de Lacey felt it incumbent on her peculiar advantages, however, to manifest how well she comprehended the subject.

“These are certainly very serious evils!” she exclaimed.  “It is quite unaccountable that my agent should have neglected to mention them.  Is there any other particular quality, sir, that strikes your eye at this distance, and which you deem alarming?”

“Too many.  You observe that her top-gallant masts are fidded abaft; none of her lofty sails set flying; and then, Madam, she has depended on bobstays and gammonings for the security of that very important part of a vessel, the bowsprit.”

“Too true! too true!” said Mrs de Lacey, in a sort of professional horror.  “These things had escaped me; but I see them all, now they are mentioned.  Such neglect is highly culpable; more especially to rely on bobstays and gammonings for the security of a bowsprit!  Really, Mrs Wyllys, I can never consent that my niece should embark in such a vessel.”

The calm, penetrating eye of Wyllys had been riveted on the countenance of Wilder while he was speaking, and she now turned it, with undisturbed serenity, on the Admiral’s widow, to reply.