The 'Lady Emma' was a full-rigged ship, between six hundred and seven hundred tons in burthen; she was a wooden ship--iron sailing vessels were few in those days; she was painted black; but though loaded for the voyage she sat lightly upon the water, and a hand's-breadth of new metal sheathing burned along her water-line like a gilding of sunlight the length of her. Her lower masts were white, her upper masts a bright yellow; her yards were very square, or as a landsman would call them wide: the most inexperienced eye might guess that when clothed in sail she would spread wings as of an albatross in power, breadth, and beauty for a meteoric flight over the long blue heave. 'How do you like her, Miss Marie?' said Mrs. Burke. 'She is a pretty ship, I think,' I answered. 'She is a beauty,' said the good woman; 'she outsails everything.' 'She has a fine commanding lift about the bows,' said Mr. Moore, passing his arm through mine. 'Captain Burke tells me she has done as much as three hundred and twelve miles in the twenty-four hours.' 'So she has, sir,' said Mrs. Burke. 'I wish she'd maintain that rate of sailing all the time Marie is aboard,' said my father. 'Oh, Sir Mortimer, this going will seem but as of yesterday's happening when yonder ship's out there again, returned, and your dear girl's in your arms, strong, fine, and hearty, rich in voice, and bright-eyed as she used to be when a baby. These voyages seem long to take, and when they're ended it's like counting how many fingers you have to remember them, so easy and quick it all went.' Lunch was served and we seated ourselves, but my throat was dry and I could swallow nothing but a little wine. My father and Mr. Moore pretended to eat; suddenly looking up I met my sweetheart's gaze: a look of inexpressible tenderness and distress entered his face, and starting from his seat he went to the window, and kept his back to us for a few minutes. Mrs. Burke went to him and whispered in his ear; I perfectly understood that she begged him to bear up for my sake: indeed it needed but for my father and my lover to give way, for me to break down utterly, with a menace of consequent prostration that must put an end to this scheme of a voyage on the very threshold of it.