"'Captain, captain!' she cried at last, softly pulling his coat, and with unconscious art using the new title: 'Captain, is't the Traveller? Can ye make her out? She has a white figure-head at her bows, and twa white lines round her side. Captain, captain! tell me for pity's sake!' "Another long keen look was bent on the brig, as slowly and disconsolately she resumed her onward way. "'No, Peggie,' said the young sailor, looking round to meet her eye, and to comfort his companion, who stood trembling by his side: 'No, Peggie—make yourself easy; it's no the Traveller.' "The poor woman seated herself on the grass, and, supporting her head on her hands, wiped from her pale cheek tears of relief and thankfulness. "'God be thanked! and oh! God pity thae puir creatures, and their wives, and their little anes. I think I have the hardest heart in a' the world, that can be glad when there's such misery in sight.' "But dry your tears, poor Peggie Rodger—brace up your trembling heart again for another fiery trial; for here comes another white sail peacefully gliding up the Firth, with a flag fluttering from the stern, and a white figure-head dashing aside the spray, which seems to embrace it joyfully, the sailors think, as out of the stormy seas it nears the welcome home. With a light step the captain walks the little quarter-deck—with light hearts the seamen lounge amidship, looking forth on the green hills of Fife. Dark grows the young sailor's face, as he watches the unsuspicious victim glide triumphantly up through the blue water into the undreaded snare; and a glance round, a slight contraction of those lines in his face which Katie Stewart, eagerly watching him, has never seen so strongly marked before, tells the poor wife on the grass enough to make her rise hysterically strong, and with her whole might gaze at the advancing ship; for, alas! one can doubt its identity no longer. The white lines on its side—the white figure-head among the joyous spray—and the Traveller dashes on, out of its icy prison in the northern harbour—out of its stormy ocean voyage—homeward bound! "Homeward bound! There is one yonder turning longing looks to Anster's quiet harbour as the ship sails past; carefully putting up in the coloured foreign baskets those little wooden toys which amused his leisure during the long dark winter among the ice, and thinking with involuntary smiles how his little ones will leap for joy as he divides the store. Put them up, good seaman, gentle father!—the little ones will be men and women before you look on them again.