"And yonder gloomy prison is to be our home, dear Mrs Wyllys, for the next
month!"

"I hope your dislike to the sea has magnified the time," mildly returned
her governess; "the passage between this place and Carolina has been often
made in a shorter period."

"That it has been so done, I can testify," resumed the Admiral's widow,
adhering a little pertinaciously to a train of thoughts, which, once
thoroughly awakened in her bosom, was not easily diverted into another
channel, "since my late estimable and (I feel certain all who hear me will
acquiesce when I add) gallant husband once conducted a squadron of his
Royal Master, from one extremity of his Majesty's American dominions to
the other, in a time less than that named by my niece: It may have made
some difference in his speed that he was in pursuit of the enemies of his
King and country, but still the fact proves that the voyage can be made
within the month."

"There is that dreadful Henlopen, with its sandy shoals and shipwrecks on
one hand, and that stream they call the Gulf on the other!" exclaimed
Gertrude, with a shudder, and a burst of natural female terror, which
makes timidity sometimes attractive, when exhibited in the person of youth
and beauty. "If it were not for Henlopen, and its gales, and its shoals,
and its gulfs, I could think only of the pleasure of meeting my father."

Mrs Wyllys, who never encouraged her pupil in those, natural weaknesses,
however pretty and be coming they might appear to other eyes, turned with
a steady mien to the young lady, as she remarked, with a brevity and
decision that were intended to put the question of fear at rest for