and of orders hoarsely shouted.

The girl came out into the cabin, where Thomas was already busy with
the breakfast table, and climbed to the deck. It was four o'clock of
the summer's morning; the sun had not yet reddened the east, but the
stars were extinct, or glimmered faint points immeasurably withdrawn
in the vast gray of the sky. At that hour there is a hovering dimness
over all, but the light on things near at hand is wonderfully keen and
clear, and the air has an intense yet delicate freshness that seems
to breathe from the remotest spaces of the universe,--a waft from
distances beyond the sun. On the land the leaves and grass are soaked
with dew; the densely interwoven songs of the birds are like a fabric
that you might see and touch. But here, save for the immediate noises
on the ship, which had already left her anchorage far behind, the
shouting of the tug's escape-pipes, and the huge, swirling gushes
from her powerful wheel, a sort of spectacular silence prevailed, and
the sounds were like a part of this silence. Here and there a small
fishing schooner came lagging slowly in, as if belated, with scarce
wind enough to fill her sails; now and then they met a steamboat,
towering white and high, a many-latticed bulk, with no one to be seen
on board but the pilot at his wheel, and a few sleepy passengers on
the forward promenade. The city, so beautiful and stately from the
bay, was dropping, and sinking away behind. They passed green islands,
some of which were fortified: the black guns looked out over the
neatly shaven glacis; the sentinel paced the rampart.

"Well, well!" shouted Captain Jenness, catching sight of Lydia where
she lingered at the cabin door. "You are an early bird. Glad to see
you up! Hope you rested well! Saw your grandfather off all right, and
kept him from taking the wrong train with my own hand. He's terribly