“You are quite right, Rosy dear,” said the aunt, “and the thing is very easily done. I’ve long wanted to keep one watch, at sea; just one watch; to complete my maritime education. Your poor uncle used to say, ‘Give my wife but one night-watch, and you’d have as good a seaman in her as heart could wish.’ I’m sure I’ve had night-watches enough with him and his ailings; but it seems that _they_ were not the sort of watches he meant. Indeed, I didn’t know till this evening there were so many watches in the world, at all. But this is just what I want, and just what I’m resolved to have. Tier shall command one watch, and I’ll command the other. Jack’s shall be the ‘dog-watch,’ as they call it, and mine shall be the ‘middle-watch,’ and last till morning. You shall be in Jack’s watch, Rose, and Biddy shall be in mine. You know a good deal that Jack don’t know, and Biddy can do a good deal I’m rather too stout to do. I don’t like pulling ropes, but as for _ordering_, I’ll turn my back on no captain’s widow out of York.” Rose had her own misgivings on the subject of her aunt’s issuing orders on such a subject to any one, but she made the best of necessity, and completed the arrangements without further discussion. Her great anxiety was to secure a good night’s rest for Harry, already feeling a woman’s care in the comfort and ease of the man she loved. And Rose did love Harry Mulford warmly and sincerely. If the very decided preference with which she regarded him before they sailed, had not absolutely amounted to passion, it had come so very near it as to render that access of feeling certain, under the influence of the association and events which succeeded. We have not thought it necessary to relate a tithe of the interviews and intercourse that had taken place between the handsome mate and the pretty Rose Budd, during the month they had now been shipmates, having left the reader to imagine the natural course of things, under such circumstances. Nevertheless, the plighted troth had not been actually given until Harry joined her on the islet, at a moment when she fancied herself abandoned to a fate almost as serious as death. Rose had seen Mulford quit the brig, had watched the mode and manner of his escape, and in almost breathless amazement, and felt how dear to her he had become, by the glow of delight which warmed her heart, when assured that he could not, would not, forsake her, even though he remained at the risk of life. She was now, true to the instinct of her sex, mostly occupied in making such a return for an attachment so devoted as became her tenderness and the habits of her mind.