"Do me the favour to turn your eyes here, to the nor'-west You see an opening there that looks like a crouching lion; is it not so?" "There is certainly a bright clear streak of sky along the margin of the ocean, that has quite lately made its appearance; does it prove that the wind will blow from that quarter?" "Quite as much, my dear young lady, as when you open your window it proves that you mean to put your head out of it." "An act a well-bred young woman very seldom performs," observed Mademoiselle Viefville; "and never in a town." "No? Well, in our town on the river, the women's heads are half the time out of the windows. But I do not pretend, ma'amselle, to be expert in proprieties of this sort, though I can venture to say that I am somewhat of a judge of what the winds would be about when they open _their_ shutters. This opening to the nor'-west, then, is a sure sign of something coming out of the window, well-bred or not." "But," added Eve, "the clouds above us, and those farther south, appear to be hurrying towards your bright opening, captain, instead of from it." "Quite in nature, gentlemen; quite in nature, ladies. When a man has fully made up his mind to retreat, he blusters the most; and one step forward often promises two backward. You often see the stormy petterel sailing at a ship as if he meant to come aboard, but he takes good care to put his helm down before he is fairly in the rigging. So it is with clouds, and all other things in nature. Vattel says you may make a show of fight when your necessities require it, but that a neutral cannot fire a gun, unless against pirates. Now, these clouds are putting the best face on the matter, but in a few minutes you will see them wheeling as St. Paul did before them." "St. Paul, Captain Truck!" "Yes, my dear young lady; to the right about." Eve frowned, for she disliked some of these nautical images, though it was impossible not to smile in secret at the queer associations that so often led the well-meaning master's discursive discourse. His mind was a strange jumble of an early religious education,--religious as to externals and professions, at least,--with subsequent loose observation and much worldly experience, and he drew on his stock of information, according to his own account of the matter, "as Saunders, the steward, cut the butter from the firkins, or as it came first."