Mrs. Tucker's smile kept her lips until she had returned to her room,
and even then languidly shone in her eyes for some minutes after, as
she gazed abstractedly from her window on the storm-tossed bay in the
distance. Perhaps some girlish vision of the peaceful Blue Glass plain
momentarily usurped the prospect; but it is to be doubted if there was
much romance in that retrospect, or that it was more interesting to her
than the positive and sharply cut outlines of the practical life she now
held. Howbeit she soon forgot this fancy in lazily watching a boat that,
in the teeth of the gale, was beating round Alcatraz Island. Although
at times a mere blank speck on the gray waste of foam, a closer scrutiny
showed it to be one of those lateen-rigged Italian fishing boats that so
often flecked the distant bay. Lost in the sudden darkening of rain,
or reappearing beneath the lifted curtain of the squall, she watched
it weather the island, and then turn its laboring but persistent course
towards the open channel. A rent in the Indian-inky sky, that showed the
narrowing portals of the Golden Gate beyond, revealed, as unexpectedly,
the destination of the little craft, a tall ship that hitherto lay
hidden in the mist of the Saucelito shore. As the distance lessened
between boat and ship, they were again lost in the downward swoop of
another squall. When it lifted, the ship was creeping under the headland
towards the open sea, but the boat was gone. Mrs. Tucker in vain rubbed
the pane with her handkerchief; it had vanished. Meanwhile the ship,
as she neared the Gate, drew out from the protecting headland, stood
outlined for a moment with spars and canvas hearsed in black against
the lurid rent in the horizon, and then seemed to sink slowly into the
heaving obscurity beyond. A sudden onset of rain against the windows
obliterated the remaining prospect; the entrance of a servant completed
the diversion.

"Captain Poindexter, ma'am!"