leads the way into a little dingy cabin, a partition running athwart ships dividing it into two apartments; the former being where Skipper Hardweather “sleeps his crew” and cooks his mess, the sternmost where he receives his friends.  This latter place, into which he conducts the nervous man, is lumbered with boxes, chests, charts, camp-seats, log lines, and rusty quadrants, and sundry marine relics which only the inveterate coaster could conceive a use for.  But the good wife Molly, whose canny face bears the wrinkles of some forty summers, and whose round, short figure is so simply set off with bright plaid frock and apron of gingham check, in taste well adapted to her humble position, is as clean and tidy as ever was picture of mine Vrow Vardenstein.  Nevertheless,—­we know the reader will join us in the sentiment-that which gave the air of domestic happiness a completeness hitherto unnoticed, was a wee responsibility, as seen sprawling and kicking goodnaturedly on the white pillow of the starboard berth, where its two peering eyes shone forth as bright as new-polished pearls.  The little darling is just a year old, Dame Hardweather tells us; it’s a twin,—­the other died, and, she knows full well, has gone to heaven.  Here she takes the little cherub in her lap, and having made her best courtesy as Hardweather introduces her to his nervous friend, seats herself on the locker, and commences suckling it, while he points to the very place on the larboard side where Clotilda-"Ah!  I just caught the name,” he says,—­used to sit and sorrow for her child.  “And then,” he continues, “on the quarter-deck she’d go and give such longing looks back, like as if she wanted to see it; and when she couldn’t, she’d turn away and sigh so.  And this, Molly,” he continues, “is the self-same child my friend here, who I am as happy to meet as a body can be, wants me to carry off from these wolves of slavery; and if I don’t, then my name’s not Jack Splitwater!” So saying, he bustles about, tells the nervous man he must excuse the want of finery, that he has been a hard coaster for God knows how many years, and the little place is all he can afford; for indeed he is poor, but expects a better place one of these days.  Then he draws forth from a little nook in the stern locker a bottle, which he says contains pure stuff, and of which he invites his visitor to partake, that he may keep up a good heart, still hoping for the best.  The nervous man declines his kind invitation,—­he has too much at heart, and the sight of the child so reminds him of his own now blighted in slavery.  The good woman now becoming deeply concerned, Hardweather must needs recount the story, and explain the strange man’s troubles, which he does in simple language; but, as the yarn is somewhat long, the reader must excuse our not transcribing it here.  With anxious face and listening ears did the woman absorb every word; and when the earnest skipper concluded with grasping firmly the man’s hand, and saying-"Just you