"That is just what I have tried to do, sir. I think my meaning is plain?"
"Nothing could be clearer, and I'd rather be aboard now than when you were on the old tack."
Annie gave Gregory a glance of glad, grateful approval that warmed his heart like sunshine.
Hunting said, enviously, sotto voce, "I think such conversation at a public table wretched taste."
"I cannot agree with you," said Annie, decidedly; "but, granting it, Mr. Gregory did not introduce the subject, and I wish you had spoken as he did when every Christian at the table was insulted."
He colored deeply, but judiciously said nothing.
With increasing pain she thought, "He who says he is not a Christian acts more like one than he who claims the character."
But she now had the strongest hopes for Gregory, and longed for a private talk with him.
The next day it blew quite a gale, and Hunting and Miss Eulie were helplessly confined to their staterooms. But Annie had become a sailor, and having done all she could for her aunt, came upon deck, where she saw Gregory walking back and forth with almost the steadiness of one of the ship's officers.
She tried to go to him, but would have fallen had he not seen her and reached her side almost at a bound. With a gentleness and tenderness as real as delicate, he placed her in a sheltered nook where she could see the waves in their mad sport, and said, "Now you can see old ocean in one of his best moods. The wind, though strong, is right abaft, filling all the sails they dare carry, and we are making grand progress."