Vanderholt, holding his countenance behind his beard, respectfully bowed and sipped at his cup.
'Are there other female captains like yourself in your country?' asked Miss Vanderholt.
'Two,' she answered; 'there may be more. I'm a third, certainly. Stop till I spin the yarn. My father was a sea-captain, and when I was a girl carried me with him on several voyages. My husband was the master of a ship, and I always went to sea with him, and could discharge his duties as well as he, and sometimes better. He died, and left me a childless widow. But I was not poor. What with my father, and my husband, and here and there a legacy, I had got to own a few thousand dollars, which I didn't quite know what to do with, for I couldn't get value enough out of the money to live upon.'
Mr. Vanderholt pricked up his ears. Any reference to dollars and interest engaged him. He listened, and forgot he was at sea.
'Till one day,' continued Captain Lind, 'being at New York—I wasn't then living in that city—I happened to pick up the New York Hatchet, and, after reading it a bit, came across this passage——'
She left the table and entered an after-berth. Mr. Vanderholt exchanged looks with his daughter. Captain Lind returned, holding an old newspaper. She seated herself, and, popping another lump of sugar into her mouth, sucked, with a grave face, whilst she opened the paper. Then, when the sugar was gone, she read aloud:
'"Mrs. Sarah Davis, of New York, has just brilliantly passed her examination for a certificate as shipmaster and pilot, and, on receiving her certificate, will, it is announced, take the command of the yacht Emerald. This lady is, it is said, not the first of her sex who has been in command of a vessel. Mrs. Mary Miller, of New Orleans, obtained a master's certificate a few years ago, and is now captain of the full-rigged merchant-ship Saline."
'When I read this, an idea came into my head, and I wasn't long in making up my mind. There's no obligation in my country to take out a master's certificate, any more than there is in yourn; but I was determined to let 'm know I was fit to command a ship, and I presented myself, and received some handsome compliments on a quality of all-round knowledge sights in excess of what the average captain carries to the ocean with him. This is my third voyage in the Wife's Hope.'
'Why the Wife's Hope?' exclaimed Mr. Vanderholt. 'You told me you were a widow.'
'I named her the Wife's Hope,' answered Captain Lind, 'that she might encourage married women cussed with drinking, loafing, idling, gambling, worthless husbands, to direct their attention to a noble pursuit which would carry them leagues clear of the troubles of home, put money in their pockets, enable them to see the world and life, and help them,' said she, putting another lump of sugar into her mouth, 'to acquire that spirit of independence without which woman must always be meaner than the plantation slave, and her case a gone sight more hopeless.'