The shore was improved by the moonlight,—its great rocks, slippery with sea-weed, glittered with a wet sheen. The Sound wore its diamonds royally, and each tiny wave broke in a jewelled light upon the sand. Far in the distance the dim shore of Long Island lay like a black line upon the water; and sloops and schooners sailed softly on their course, or tacked across the rippling waves, a fleet of "Black spirits and white."
"What do you think of the illumination, Miss Faith?" said her companion, when they had sat still for five minutes.
"What do you think of it, I think I should say. Mr. Linden, I have shewed you the shore!"
"You!"—
"Who else?
"Were you ever here before by moonlight?"
"I don't know—No, I think not. Were you ever here before at all?"
"Is it owing to you that I am here now?"
"You couldn't have got here without me," said Faith, stooping to turn over some of the glittering pebbles at her feet;—"and I couldn't have got here without you. I am willing to allow that we are square, Mr. Linden. I must!—for you will turn a corner faster than I can catch you."
"If you really suppose that first proposition to be true," said Mr. Linden raising his eyebrows, "why of course there is no more to be said. Miss Faith, how would you like to be sailing about in one of those phantom ships?"