"Cheer up, Ethel—permit me to call you so," said Hawkshaw, who had been silently regarding her sweet, pensive face. "Cheer up," he repeated, in a low voice; "think of what is before us in the Mauritius—the lovely Isle of France—the land of Paul and Virginia, that amiable little Virginia, about whom every lady at least once in life sheds so many tears, especially when in her early teens. We must go over all the places depicted by Bernardin St. Pierre in his novel; the Shaddock Grove, the Mount of Discovery, Cape Misfortune, and the Bay of the Tomb—eh?"
"In pity leave me to myself," said Ethel, on whose sensitive ear his half-jocular voice sounded gratingly.
"As you please," he muttered, under his breath, with impatience, as he went to leeward and lit a cigar.
Next evening Ethel wept again, as she saw the last of England—the lovely coast of Devon, with all its apple-bowers mellowing in the sun—fade into a blue streak, that blended with the evening sea.
Then, for the first time, sea and sky, cloud and water were around them, and she strove to rouse herself from the apathy that had been oppressing her faculties, and endeavoured, if she could not speak, at least to listen to the conversation of others.
"Our crew are indeed a mixed lot, Mr. Basset," she heard Captain Phillips say to her father; "mixed in character and in colour; more like a gang shipped in the Mersey than in London."
"How so, sir?" asked Mr. Basset.
"We have Yankees, West Indians, and Mexican Spaniards—some of these last are the worst of the lot."
"Been a good many years in Mexico, Captain Phillips," said Hawkshaw, assuming a jaunty air.
"Have you?"