"Oh, yes! a big, big ship!"
"I should like to sail in a ship," said Reuben; "did you like it?"
"Not very much," said Adèle, "the deck was so slippery, and the waves were so high, oh, so high!"—and the little maid makes an explanatory gesture with her two hands, the like of which for grace and expressiveness Reuben had certainly never seen in any girl of Ashfield. His eyes twinkled at it.
"Were you afraid?" said he.
"Oh, not much."
"Because you know," said Reuben, consolingly, "if the ship had sunk, you could have come on shore in the small boats." He saw a merry laugh of wonderment threatening in her face, and continued authoritatively, "Nat Boody has been in a sloop, and he says they always carry small boats to pick up people when the big ships go down."
Adèle laughed outright. "But how would they carry the bread, and the stove, and the water, and the anchor, and all the things? Besides, the great waves would knock a small boat in pieces."
Reuben felt a humiliating sense of being no match for the little stranger on sea topics, so he changed the theme.
"Are you going to Miss Onthank's?"
"That's a funny name," says Adèle; "that's the school, isn't it? Yes, I suppose I'll go there: you go, don't you?"