The merchant’s wife, on the other hand, Mrs. Ashton, was a gay, talkative woman, a showy dresser, and fond of a quiet boast, which her husband, a short man with a yellow beard, took care never to contradict. Mr. Holland began to pay her attention straightway, and then Mr. St. Aubyn stepped in with theatrical emphasis and smooth observations, like the speeches in comedies. Captain Steel, though very polite to this lady, inclined to Mrs. Tennent,--his sailor’s heart appreciating her defencelessness, and propounding all kinds of problems how best to amuse, please, and cheer her. But though she could not fail to like the honest skipper, she evidently preferred Holdsworth, who would go and talk to her for an hour at a time about Dolly, and then listen, with a face of kindliest sympathy, to little passages out of her own life. And so a week went by, and the ship strove with the baffling winds, which blew directly from the quarter to which her bowsprit should have pointed, and captain and men began to chafe, finding the job of putting the ship about tiresome at last. On the seventh day, about the hour of sunset, the wind fell, and the surface of the sea became polished as glass, though from the north-east there came, through the mighty expanse of water, a long and regular swell, which made the ship rise and fall as regularly as the breath of a sleeper. “We shall have the wind from that quarter, I think, sir,” said Holdsworth to the skipper. “Or is this an after-swell, Mr. Holdsworth?” suggested the skipper, sending his keen gaze across the sea to the horizon, where the sky was as blue as it was overhead. There was no telling. This long and regular swell might be the precursor of a gale, or the effects of one that had passed. The barometer had fallen, but this might only indicate a southerly wind, not necessarily dirty weather. The heavens were perfectly tranquil; the day was fading into a serene and gloriously beautiful evening, with no hint in all its benign aspect to suggest the need of the slightest precaution. Mrs. Ashton was at the piano, accompanying Mr. St. Aubyn to a song, which he sang so affectedly that some of the hands forward mimicked him, and the forecastle seemed full of guinea-pigs. Her husband popped his head over the skylight and called to her to come and view the sunset. Up she came, escorted by Mr. Holland and the actor, flounced showily into a chair, and fell into a rapture. “Oh, how beautiful! The sea looks like gold! doesn’t it, Captain Steel? See how red the sails are! Ah, if I could only paint! what fame such a picture as this would bring me.” True; but then what manner of pigments was needful to reproduce the glory, the colour, the calm, the infinity of that wonderful scene!