Here was a flight in science and nautical language that poor Mulford could not have anticipated, even in the captain’s relict!  That Mrs. Budd should mistake “setting the watch” for “setting our watches,” was not so very violent a blunder that one ought to be much astonished at it in her; but that she should expect to find a chronometer that was intended to keep the time of Greenwich, agreeing with a watch that was set for the time of New York, betrayed a degree of ignorance that the handsome mate was afraid Rose would resent on him, when the mistake was made to appear.  As the widow held out her own watch for the comparison, however, he could not refuse to produce his own.  By Mrs. Budd’s watch it was past seven o’clock, while by his own, or the Greenwich-set chronometer, it was a little past twelve.

“How very wrong your watch is, Mr. Mulford,” cried the good lady, “notwithstanding all you have said in its favour.  It’s quite five hours too fast, I do declare; and now, Rosy dear, you see the importance of setting watches on a ship’s board, as is done every evening, my departed husband has often told me.”

“Harry’s must be what he calls a dog-watch, aunty,” said Rose, laughing, though she scarce knew at what.

“The watch goes, too,” added the widow, raising the chronometer to her ear, “though it is so very wrong.  Well, set it, Mr. Mulford; then we will set Rose’s, which I’ll engage is half an hour out of the way, though it can never be as wrong as yours.”

Mulford was a good deal embarrassed, but he gained courage by looking at Rose, who appeared to him to be quite as much mystified as her aunt.  For once he hoped Rose was ignorant; for nothing would be so likely to diminish the feeling produced by the exposure of the aunt’s mistake, as to include the niece in the same category.

“My watch is a chronometer, you will recollect, Mrs. Budd,” said the young man.

“I know it; and they ought to keep the very best time—­that I’ve always heard.  My poor Mr. Budd had two, and they were as large as compasses, and sold for hundreds after his lamented decease.”

“They were ship’s chronometers, but mine was made for the pocket.  It is true, chronometers are intended to keep the most accurate time, and usually they do; this of mine, in particular, would not lose ten seconds in a twelvemonth, did I not carry it on my person.”

“No, no, it does not seem to lose any, Harry; it only gains,” cried Rose, laughing.

Mulford was now satisfied, notwithstanding all that had passed on a previous occasion, that the laughing, bright-eyed, and quick-witted girl at his elbow, knew no more of the uses of a chronometer than her unusually dull and ignorant aunt; and he felt himself relieved from all embarrassment at once.  Though he dared not even seem to distrust Mrs. Budd’s intellect or knowledge before Rose, he did not scruple to laugh at Rose herself, to Rose.  With her there was no jealousy on the score of capacity, her quickness being almost as obvious to all who approached her as her beauty.