Gertrude had answered in his own vein; but it was too evident, by her pale cheek, and a slight tremour about her full, rich lip, that memory was also busy with its frightful images. The quick-searching eye of the Rover was not slow to detect the change. As though he would banish every recollection that might give her pain, he artfully, but delicately, gave a new direction to the discourse. “There are people who think the sea has no amusements,” he said. “To a pining, home-sick, sea-sick miserable, this may well be true; but the man who has spirit enough to keep down the qualms of the animal may tell a different tale. We have our balls regularly, for instance; and there are artists on board this ship, who, though they cannot, perhaps, make as accurate a right angle with their legs as the first dancer of a leaping ballet, can go through their figures in a gale of wind; which is more than can be said of the highest jumper of them all on shore.” “A ball, without females, would, at least, be thought an unsocial amusement, with us uninstructed people of terra firma.” “Hum! It might be better for a lady or two Then, have we our theatre: Farce, comedy, and the buskin, take their turns to help along the time. You fellow, that you see lying on the fore-topsail-yard like an indolent serpent basking on the branch of a tree, will ‘roar you as gently as any sucking dove!’ And here is a votary of Momus, who would raise a smile on the lips of a sea-sick friar: I believe I can say no more in his commendation.” “All this is well in the description,” returned Mrs Wyllys; “but something is due to the merit of the—poet, or, painter shall I term you?” “Neither, but a grave and veritable chronologer. However, since you doubt, and since you are so new to the ocean”— “Pardon me!” the lady gravely interrupted, “I am, on the contrary, one who has seen much of it.” The Rover, who had rather suffered his unsettled glances to wander over the youthful countenance of Gertrude than towards her companion, now bent his eyes on the last speaker, where he kept them fastened so long as to create some little embarrassment in the subject of his gaze. “You seem surprised that the time of a female should have been thus employed,” she observed, with a view to arouse his attention to the impropriety of his observation. “We were speaking of the sea, if I remember,” he continued, like a man that was suddenly awakened from a deep reverie. “Ay, I know it was of the sea; for I had grown boastful in my panegyrics: I had told you that this ship was faster than”— “Nothing!” exclaimed Gertrude, laughing at his blunder. “You were playing Master of Ceremonies at a nautical ball!” “Will you figure in a minuet? Shall I honour my boards with the graces of your person?” “Me, sir? and with whom? the gentleman who knows so well the manner of keeping his feet in a gale?”