“And justly?”
“I fear, justly.”
“Ay!” exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, with an emphasis that was remarkable for the tone of soft and yet bitter regret with which it was uttered; “often better than their quiet and peaceful homes!”
Gertrude pursued the idea no further; but her line full eye fell upon the deck, as though she reflected deeply on a perversity of taste which could render man so insensible to domestic pleasures, and incline him to court the wild dangers of the ocean.
“I, at least, am free from the latter charge,” exclaimed Wilder: “To me a ship has always been a home.”
“And much of my life, too, has been wasted in one,” continued the governess, who evidently was pursuing, in the recesses of her own mind, some images of a time long past. “Happy and miserable alike, have been the hours that I have passed upon the sea! Nor is this the first King’s ship in which it has been my fortune to be thrown. And yet the customs seem changed since those days I mention, or else memory is beginning to lose some of the impressions of an age when memory is apt to be most tenacious. Is it usual, Mr Wilder, to admit an utter stranger, like yourself, to exercise authority in a vessel of war?”
“Certainly not.”
“And yet have you been acting, as far as my weak judgment teaches, as second here, since the moment we entered this vessel, wrecked and helpless fugitives from the waves.”
Our adventurer again averted his eye, and evidently searched for words, ere he replied,—
“A commission is always respected: Mine procured for me the consideration you have witnessed.”