“‘The Royal Caroline?’” Wilder carelessly replied.

“That is her name, I believe.”

“I hope, Madam, that nothing which I have said,” he hastily continued, “will have an effect to prejudice you against the ship.  I will pledge myself that she is made of excellent materials, and then I have not the least doubt but she is very ably commanded.”

“And yet have you not hesitated to say, that you consider a passage in this very vessel more dangerous than one in any other ship that will probably leave a port of the Provinces in many months to come.”

“I did,” answered Wilder, with a manner not to be mistaken.

“Will you explain your reasons for this opinion?”

“If I remember rightly, I gave them to the lady whom I had the honour to see an hour ago.”

“That individual, sir, is no longer here,” was the grave reply of Wyllys; “neither is she to trust her person in the vessel.  This young lady and myself, with our attendants, will be the only passengers.”

“I understood it so,” returned Wilder, keeping his thoughtful gaze riveted on the speaking countenance of the deeply interested Gertrude.

“And, now that there is no apprehension of any mistake, may I ask you to repeat the reasons why you think there will be danger in embarking in the ‘Royal Caroline?’”

Wilder started, and even had the grace to colour, as he met the calm and attentive look of Mrs Wyllys’s searching, but placid eye.

“You would not have me repeat, Madam,” he stammered, “what I have already said on the subject?”

“I would not, sir; once will suffice for such an explanation; still am I persuaded you have other reasons for your words.”

“It is exceedingly difficult for a seaman to speak of ships in any other than technical language, which must be the next thing to being unintelligible to one of your sex and condition.  You have never been at sea, Madam?”

“Very often, sir.”

“Then may I hope, possibly, to make myself understood.  You must be conscious, Madam, that no small part of the safety of a ship depends on the very material point of keeping her right side uppermost sailors call it ‘making her stand up.’  Now I need not say, I am quite sure, to a lady of your intelligence, that, if the ‘Caroline’ fall on her beam there will be imminent hazard to all on board.”

“Nothing can be clearer; but would not the same risk be incurred in any other vessel?”

“Without doubt, if any other vessel should trip.  But I have pursued my profession for many years, without meeting with such a misfortune, but once.  Then, the fastenings of the bowsprit”—­

“Are good as ever came from the hand of rigger,” said a voice behind them.

The whole party turned; and beheld, at a little distance, the old seaman already introduced, mounted on some object on the other side of the wall, against which he was very coolly leaning, and whence he overlooked the whole of the interior of the grounds.