very beautiful, as well as an exceedingly swift vessel; but all this was lost on Rose, who would have admired a horse-jockey bound to the West Indies, in this the incipient state of her nautical knowledge.  Perhaps the exquisite neatness that Mulford maintained about everything that came under his care, and that included everything on deck, or above-board, and about which neatness Spike occasionally muttered an oath, as so much senseless trouble, contributed somewhat to Rose’s pleasure; but her admiration would scarcely have been less with anything that had sails, and seemed to move through the water with a power approaching that of volition.

It was very different with Mrs. Budd, She, good woman, had actually made one voyage with her late husband, and she fancied that she knew all about a vessel.  It was her delight to talk on nautical subjects, and never did she really feel her great superiority over her niece, so very unequivocally, as when the subject of the ocean was introduced, about which she did know something, and touching which Rose was profoundly ignorant, or as ignorant as a girl of lively imagination could remain with the information gleaned from others.

“I am not surprised you are astonished at the sight of the vessel, Rosy,” observed the self-complacent aunt at one of her niece’s exclamations of admiration.  “A vessel is a very wonderful thing, and we are told what extr’orny beings they are that `go down to the sea in ships.’  But you are to know this is not a ship at all, but only a half-jigger rigged, which is altogether a different thing.”

“Was my uncle’s vessel, The Rose In Bloom, then, very different from the Swash?”

“Very different indeed, child!  Why, The Rose In Bloom was a full-jiggered ship, and had twelve masts—­and this is only a half-jiggered brig, and has but two masts.  See, you may count them—­one—­two!”

Harry Mulford was coiling away a top-gallant-brace, directly in front of Mrs. Budd and Rose, and, at hearing this account of the wonderful equipment of The Rose In Bloom, he suddenly looked up, with a lurking expression about his eye that the niece very well comprehended, while he exclaimed, without much reflection, under the impulse of surprise—­“Twelve masts!  Did I understand you to say, ma’am, that Capt.  Budd’s ship had twelve masts?”

“Yes, sir, twelve! and I can tell you all their names, for I learnt them by heart—­it appearing to me proper that a ship-master’s wife should know the names of all the masts in her husband’s vessel.  Do you wish to hear their names, Mr. Mulford?”