“She has been to sea longer than that!” put in Wynnette, the incorrigible. “She is only seventeen years old, but she has been to sea about two hundred years to my certain knowledge! And how many thousand years before that I don’t know! And if she has not exactly followed the sea, in her own person, she has in that of her ancestry, on both sides of the house. Her father was a sailor, her two grandfathers were sailors, and her four great-grandfathers. And from them she has inherited her good sea legs.”
“No—doubt—of—it. No—doubt—of—it,” slowly and approvingly replied the old skipper, as he gazed admiringly on his little niece. “Ah! if she had only been a boy, what a sailor I could have made of her!”
They were drawing very near to Queenstown now, and in less than half an hour the Asia dropped anchor in the Cove of Cork.
As soon as the ship was still the seasick got well and went down to breakfast.
After that they returned to the deck, to look out upon the coast of Ireland.
As the Asia was to wait there for some hours to get the last mail, many of the passengers went on shore. Our party remained on the steamer.
In the afternoon the excursionists returned. The ship made preparations for sailing.
Our party sitting on deck, and all feeling perfectly well now that the ship was still, overheard some “grew-some” words from one of the men.
“That bank of clouds in the west means mischief and dirty weather ahead.”
“Do you hear that, Jack Tar?” inquired the old skipper of his little niece.