“The gentleman will step down to the cabin,” said the deep, quiet voice.  “I will attend him, the ladies also.”

He led the way, and pretty Lena Brown came next; she glanced up at him as he held out his strong hand to help her down the ladder.  Her blue eyes were very sweet as she met his gaze, and the faint wild-rose blush became her well.  Certainly, Lena was a very pretty girl.  Franci nearly tumbled over the companion-rail in his endeavours to look after her, and Laurentus Woodcock, catching one glimpse of her face, retreated to the farthest corner of the after-deck, and sold a Triton for ten cents, when the lowest price was thirty.

Several other persons came down into the cabin at the same time.  There was Mr. Bill Hen Pike.  Mr. Bill Hen had been a sailor himself fifty years ago, and it was a point of honour with him to visit anything with keel and sails that came up the river.  He used nautical expressions whenever it could be managed, and was the village authority on all sea-going matters.

There were Isaac Cutter and his wife, who had money to spend, and were not averse to showing it; there was Miss Eliza Clinch, who had spent her fifty years of life in looking for a bargain, which she had not yet found; and some others.  But though the Skipper was courteous to all, he kept close to the side of Mr. Endymion Scraper; and the boy John, and Lena Brown, who was always kind to him, kept close beside the other two.  The girl was enchanted with what she saw, but her joy was chiefly in the trinkets that filled the glass counter,—­the necklaces and bracelets, the shell hairpins and mother-of-pearl portemonnaies.

“Aint they handsome?” she cried, over and over, surveying the treasures with clasped hands and shining eyes.  “Oh, Johnny! isn’t that just elegant?  Did you ever see such beautiful things?  I don’t think the President’s wife has no handsomer than them!”

John frowned a little at these ecstasies, and glanced at the Skipper; but the Skipper was apparently absorbed in polishing the Royal Tritons, and showing them to Mr, Scraper, who regarded them with disdainful eyes, while his fingers twitched to lay hold of them.

“Why, Lena, you don’t want to be looking at those things!” the boy urged.  “See! here are the shells!  Here are the real ones, not made up into truck, but just themselves.  Oh, oh!  Lena, look!”

The Skipper was coming forward with a shell in his hand of exquisite colour and shape.

“Perhaps the young lady like to see this?” he said.  “This the Voluta Musica,—­a valuable shell, young lady.  You look, and see the lines of the staff on the shell, so?  Here they run, you see!  The mermaids under the water, they have among themselves no sheet-music, so on shells they must read it.  Can the young lady follow the notes if she take the shell in her hand?”

He laid the lovely thing in the girl’s hand, and marked how the polished lip and the soft pink palm wore the same tender shade of rose; but he said nothing of this, for he was not Franci.