“Ah, my dear, that is on account of your youth and inexperience—­but you will learn better in time.  I was just so, myself, when I was of your age, and thought the fore-rafters were as handsome as the squared-jiggers, but soon after I married Capt.  Budd I felt the necessity of knowing more than I did about ships, and I got him to teach me.  He did n’t like the business, at first, and pretended I would never learn; but, at last, it came all at once like, and then he used to be delighted to hear me `talk ship,’ as he called it.  I’ve known him laugh, with his cronies, as if ready to die, at my expertness in sea-terms, for half an hour together—­and then he would swear—­that was the worst fault your uncle had, Rosy—­he would swear, sometimes, in a way that frightened me, I do declare!”

“But he never swore at you, aunty?”

“I can’t say that he did exactly do that, but he would swear all round me, even if he did n’t actually touch me, when things went wrong—­but it would have done your heart good to hear him laugh! he had a most excellent heart, just like your own, Rosy dear; but, for that matter, all the Budds have excellent hearts, and one of the commonest ways your uncle had of showing it was to laugh, particularly when we were together and talking.  Oh, he used to delight in hearing me converse, especially about vessels, and never failed to get me at it when he had company.  I see his good-natured, excellent-hearted countenance at this moment, with the tears running down his fat, manly cheeks, as he shook his very sides with laughter.  I may live a hundred years, Rosy, before I meet again with your uncle’s equal.”

This was a subject that invariably silenced Rose.  She remembered her uncle, herself, and remembered his affectionate manner of laughing at her aunt, and she always wished the latter to get through her eulogiums on her married happiness, as soon as possible, whenever the subject was introduced.

All this time the Molly Swash kept in motion.  Spike never took a pilot when he could avoid it, and his mind was too much occupied with his duty, in that critical navigation, to share at all in the conversation of his passengers, though he did endeavour to make himself agreeable to Rose, by an occasional remark, when a favourable opportunity offered.

As soon as he had worked his brig over into the south or weather passage of Blackwell’s, however, there remained little for him to do, until she had drifted through it, a distance of a mile or more; and this gave him leisure to do the honours.  He pointed out the castellated edifice on Blackwell’s as the new penitentiary, and the hamlet of villas, on the other shore, as Ravenswood, though there is neither wood nor ravens to authorize the name.  But the “Sunswick,” which satisfied the Delafields and Gibbses of the olden, time, and which distinguished their lofty halls and broad lawns, was not elegant enough for the cockney tastes of these latter days, so “wood” must be made to