be miles on miles, and yet we see nothing but leaves! what could
one behold, if looking at the ocean?"

"More!" returned the uncle, giving an impatient gesture with the
elbow the other touched, for his arms were crossed, and the hands
were thrust into the bosom of a vest of red cloth, a fashion of
the times, -- "more, Magnet! say, rather, what less? Where are
your combing seas, your blue water, your rollers, your breakers,
your whales, or your waterspouts, and your endless motion, in this
bit of a forest, child?"

"And where are your tree-tops, your solemn silence, your fragrant
leaves, and your beautiful green, uncle, on the ocean?"

"Tut, Magnet! if you understood the thing, you would know that
green water is a sailor's bane. He scarcely relishes a greenhorn
less."

"But green trees are a different thing. Hist! that sound is the
air breathing among the leaves!"

"You should hear a nor-wester breathe, girl, if you fancy wind
aloft. Now, where are your gales, and hurricanes, and trades, and
levanters, and such like incidents, in this bit of a forest? And
what fishes have you swimming beneath yonder tame surface?"

"That there have been tempests here, these signs around us plainly
show; and beasts, if not fishes, are beneath those leaves."

"I do not know that," returned the uncle, with a sailor's dogmatism.