“I am telling Gertrude,” said the governess, with those tones of confidence which had been created by the dangers they had incurred together, “that yonder is her home, and that, when the breeze shall be felt, we may speedily hope to reach it; but the wilfully timid girl insists that she cannot believe her senses, after the frightful risks we have run, until, at least, she shall see the dwelling of her childhood, and the face of her father. You have often been on this coast before, Mr Wilder?”
“Often, Madam.”
“Then, you can tell us what is the distant land we see.”
“Land!” repeated our adventurer, affecting a look of surprise; “is there then land in view?”
“Is there land in view! Have not hours gone by since the same was proclaimed from the masts?”
“It may be so: We seamen are dull after a night of watching, and often hear but little of that which passes.”
There was a quick, suspicious glance from the eye of the governess, as if she apprehended, she knew not what, ere she continued,—
“Has the sight of the cheerful, blessed soil of America so soon lost its charm in your eye, that you approach it with an air so heedless? The infatuation of men of your profession, in favour of so dangerous and so treacherous an element, is an enigma I never could explain.”
“Do seamen, then, love their calling with so devoted an affection?” demanded Gertrude, in a haste that she might have found embarrassing to explain.
“It is a folly of which we are often accused,” rejoined Wilder, turning his eye on the speaker, and smiling in a manner that had lost every shade of reserve.