“Had you particularized the duck, the comparison would have been exactly nautical,” said the governess, smiling mournfully; “you show capabilities my love, to be one day a seaman’s wife.” Gertrude blushed a little; and, turning back her head to answer in the playful vein of her governess, her eye met the riveted look of Wilder, fastened on herself. The colour on her cheek deepened to a carnation, and she was mute; the large gipsy hat she wore serving to conceal both her face and the confusion which so deeply suffused it. “You make no answer, child, as if you reflected seriously on the chances,” continued Mrs Wyllys, whose thoughtful and abstracted mien, however, sufficiently proved she scarcely knew what she uttered. “The sea is too unstable an element for my taste,” Gertrude coldly answered. “Pray tell me, Mrs Wyllys, is the vessel we are approaching a King’s ship? She has a warlike, not to say a threatening exterior.” “The pilot has twice called her a slaver.” “A slaver! How deceitful then is all her beauty and symmetry! I will never trust to appearances again, since so lovely an object can be devoted to so vile a purpose.” “Deceitful indeed!” exclaimed Wilder aloud, under an impulse that he found as irresistible as it was involuntary. “I will take upon myself to say, that a more treacherous vessel does not float the ocean than yonder finely proportioned and admirably equipped”—— “Slaver,” added Mrs Wyllys, who had time to turn, and to look all her astonishment, before the young man appeared disposed to finish his own sentence. “Slaver;” he said with emphasis, bowing at the same time, as if he would thank her for the word. After this interruption, a profound silence occurred Mrs Wyllys studied the disturbed features of the young man, for a moment, with a countenance that denoted a singular, though a complicated, interest; and then she gravely bent her eyes on the water, deeply occupied with intense, if not painful reflection The light symmetrical form of Gertrude continued leaning on the rail, it is true, but Wilder was unable to catch another glimpse of her averted and shadowed lineaments. In the mean while, events, that were of a character to withdraw his attention entirely from even so pleasing a study, were hastening to their accomplishment.