wit. By skill and persistence and bodily strength he had compassed a
curve his father had declared impossible without a dock-yard. Three
planks being fixed, he was sure of the rest, and could well afford to
stop, to admire the effect, and feel proud of his work, and of himself
the worker. Then the panic of the conies made him turn his head, and the
quick beat of his heart was quickened by worse than bodily labor.

Miss Dolly Darling was sauntering sweetly, as if there were only one
sex in the world, and that an entirely divine one. The gleam of spring
sunset was bright in her hair, and in the soft garnish of health on
her cheeks, and the vigorous play of young life in her eyes; while the
silvery glance of the sloping shore, and breezy ruffle of the darkening
sea, did nothing but offer a foil for the form of the shell-colored
frock and the sky-blue sash.

Young Daniel fell back upon his half-shaped work, and despised it, and
himself, and everything, except what he was afraid to look at. In the
hollow among the sand-hills where the cradle of the boat was, fine
rushes grew, and tufts of ragwort, and stalks of last year's thistles,
and sea-osiers where the spring oozed down. Through these the white
ribs of the rising boat shone forth like an elephant's skeleton; but
the builder entertained some hope, as well as some fear, of being
unperceived.

But a far greater power than his own was here. Curved and hollow ships
are female in almost all languages, not only because of their curves and
hollows, but also because they are craft--so to speak.

"Oh, Captain Tugwell, are you at work still? Why, you really ought to
have gone with the smacks. But perhaps you sent your son instead. I