When I awoke, the morning watch was being called, and springing from my hammock I was soon at my post on deck. The sky was clear, the waves had gone down, and a gentle breeze was singing through the rigging. To have gazed around on the almost unruffled sea one would never have imagined the fury with which it had raged scarcely forty-eight hours before. Early in the day Mr. St. Clair appeared on deck, and his first words were to renew his thanks to me of the day before. He alluded delicately to past times, and reproved me gently for having suffered the intimacy betwixt me and his family to decline. He concluded by hoping that, in future, our friendship—for such he called it—would suffer no diminution. I was attending, after breakfast, to the execution of an order forwards, when, on turning my eyes aft, I saw the flutter of a woman’s dress. My heart told me it was that of Annette, and, at the instant, she turned around. Our eyes met. Her smile of recognition was even sweeter than that of the day before. I bowed, but could not leave my duty, else I should have flown to her side. It is strange what emotions her smile awakened in my bosom. I could scarcely attend to the execution of my orders, so wildly did my brain whirl with feelings of extatic joy. At length my duty was performed. But then a new emotion seized me. I wished and yet I feared to join Annette. But I mustered courage to go aft, and no sooner had I reached the quarterdeck, than Mr. St. Clair beckoned me to his side. “Annette,” he said, “has scarcely yet given you her thanks. She has not forgotten you, indeed she was the first to recognise you yesterday. You remember, love, don’t you?” he said, turning to his daughter, “the summer Mr. Cavendish spent with us at the Hall. It was you, I believe, who shed so many tears at his departure.” He said this gayly, but it called the color into his daughter’s cheek. Perhaps he noticed this, for he instantly resumed in a different tone: “But see, Annette, here comes the captain, and I suppose you would take a turn on the quarterdeck. Your cousin will accompany him,—Mr. Cavendish must be your _chaperon_.”