The conversation was ended by his going on deck to send the mate down to dinner. The miserable weather came to an end, and then we took the north-east trades and swept down the Atlantic under wide spaces of canvas which for many feet overhung the ship's weather side, and she rushed onwards with the salt smoke blowing from her bows, and that swallow of the deep, the stormy petrel, freckling in its swarm the wide hollows betwixt the quartering ridges. For five days we sighted nothing, though Captain Burke promised that the first homeward-bound ship he met with willing to back her topsail should receive my letter. Once during these mornings, on coming on deck after breakfast, I found the ship steadily washing through the seas with easy bowing motions, leaving a league-long line of white behind her. We were in hot weather now; an awning sheltered the quarter-deck, and comfortable chairs were under it. It was the improving health in me that gave me the spirit I had; I did not want to sit; the life of the sea seemed to sweep into my being in a holiday dance of heart. Now that I could feel without the suffering that had before prostrated me, the whole vitality of the ship coming out of the gallant flying fabric of her into the very poise of my form, with a sense as of waltzing in each compelled motion of the figure, I found an enjoyment in her buoyant motions, and in the rolling measures of the surge, beyond anything my poor health had suffered me to know in the ball-room, beyond all delight fine music had given me. When we came on deck Mrs. Burke stood a little while with her hand on my arm, whilst I looked aloft and around; our gaze met; she laughed in the fulness of some instant emotion of pleasure, and cried: 'Oh, dear Miss Marie, I wish Sir Mortimer could see the light that is in your eyes at this minute!' 'I wonder,' said I, 'if Dr. Bradshaw and the others foresaw that I should enjoy this voyage?' 'Are you enjoying it?' she exclaimed eagerly. 'I am constantly pining for home,' I answered, 'and longing--and longing, to see father and Archie. And yet, somehow, this splendid sunshine and wonderful scene of sea, this delicious feeling of being borne through the air, makes me so glad and light-hearted that I believe the strong tonic of the wind has affected my head.' 'No more than it has mine,' she exclaimed. 'It is like drinking wine in sorrow,' said I; 'the mind seems merry with it, and the eyes sparkle, but the heart is sad all the same and will speak presently.' 'I'll tell Mr. Owen how you talk,' said she. 'You're not fair to the remedy.' 'I don't want to sit,' said I. 'Let me look at the ship this fine morning: I should like to take a peep at the sailors' parlour. And suppose we go right into the bows there and watch the glorious white foam.'