"POST-OFFICE." Before it, ran a rill of murmuring water, and access to
it was gained by a little plank-bridge.

"Here's the name," said Captain Jorgan, "sure enough. You can come in if
you like, Tom."

The captain opened the door, and passed into an odd little shop, about
six feet high, with a great variety of beams and bumps in the ceiling,
and, besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones, a
purblind little window of a single pane of glass, peeping out of an
abutting corner at the sun-lighted ocean, and winking at its brightness.

"How do you do, ma'am?" said the captain. "I am very glad to see you. I
have come a long way to see you."

"_Have_ you, sir? Then I am sure I am very glad to see _you_, though I
don't know you from Adam."

Thus a comely elderly woman, short of stature, plump of form, sparkling
and dark of eye, who, perfectly clean and neat herself, stood in the
midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, and surveyed Captain
Jorgan with smiling curiosity. "Ah! but you are a sailor, sir," she
added, almost immediately, and with a slight movement of her hands, that
was not very unlike wringing them; "then you are heartily welcome."

"Thank'ee, ma'am," said the captain, "I don't know what it is, I am sure;
that brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to see it on the
crown of my hat and the collar of my coat. Yes, ma'am, I am in that way
of life."