the mind of our young sealer! He fancied that he saw Mary standing in the
porch of her uncle's habitation, a witness of the approach of the
schooner, looking wistfully at the still indistinct images of those who
were to be seen on her decks. Mary had often done this in her dreams;
again and again had she beheld the white sails of the Sea Lion driving
across Gardiner's Bay, and entering Peconic; and often had she thus gazed
in the weather-worn countenance of him who occupied so much of her
thoughts--so many of her prayers--picturing through the mysterious images
of sleep the object she so well loved when waking.

And where was Mary Pratt at that day and hour when Roswell was thus
issuing his last orders at Sealer's Land; and what was her occupation, and
what her thoughts? The difference in longitude between the group and
Montauk was so trifling that the hour might be almost called identical.
Literally so, it was not; but mainly so, it was. There were not the five
degrees in difference that make the twenty minutes in time. More than this
we are not permitted to say on this subject; and this is quite enough to
give the navigator a pretty near notion of the position of the group. As a
degree of longitude measures less than twenty-eight statute miles at the
polar circles, this is coming within a day's run of the spot, so far as
longitude is concerned; and nearer than that we do not intend to carry the
over-anxious reader, let his curiosity be as lively as it may.

And where, then, was Mary Pratt? Safe, well, and reasonably happy, in the
house of her uncle, where she had passed most of her time since infancy.
The female friends of mariners have always fruitful sources of uneasiness
in the pursuit itself; but Mary had no other cause for concern of this
nature than what was inseparable from so long a voyage, and the sea into
which Roswell had gone. She well knew that the time was arrived when he
was expected to be on his way home; and as hope is an active and beguiling