"Weir said you wouldn't take the ship; indeed, he said you shouldn't." Charles laughed and nodded his head. "I never saw the captain agree with any one as he does with you. He seems to be always of your mind exactly. Whatever you think best, he consents to at once." And Anthony, as he listened to this, felt a stirring of unrest in his mind; it was a vague thing, yet it left him questioning, and, somehow, insecure. XX February passed, and, midway in March, the ice broke in the river and bay, and ships began to move up and down. But while waiting for this Anthony had gone on with his study of the old books of Rufus Stevens' Sons; and the deeper he got into them the more thoughtful and puzzled he seemed, the more elaborate were the notes he took, the more he frowned as he went about his business during the day, and the more he felt a desire for some one with whom to talk and compare judgments. But, also, there was another interest looming during the late winter and early spring. This was the first of the new ships which Charles had ordered; all winter the work had gone forward at the Siddons yard in Shackamaxon; shipwrights, joiners, blacksmiths, worked under the sheds and in the open; the huge ways were the wonder of the waterfront, and as the oaken hull grew and began to rear people formed parties of a Sunday or a holiday and drove up the river road to see it. The work had reached this stage about the time the ice broke up; and then, with the sight of the moving shipping to stir his blood, Charles began to urge haste. "The _Rufus Stevens_ must be launched, have her masts placed, the rigging bent, and be in the dock receiving cargo by the last week in June," said he. "That will be six months' building time," said Siddons. "I know vessels have been put into the water in that space, but they were not of this one's quality and substance, seasoned timbers and excellent joining. Six months! Why, sir, the like has never been done on this river. Here we've gone through a severe winter; come wet or dry, cold or snow, we've not missed a day; if we couldn't work on the structure, we've worked under the sheds at making ready the timbers or forging the ironmongery. My calculations were the middle of September at the earliest, and that was promising much, Mr. Stevens."