“Is there not such a thing as clearing out in navigation?” asked Rose, quickly, willing to cover a little confusion that was manifest in her aunt’s manner.

“Not exactly in navigation, Miss Rose, but clearing out, with honest folk, ought to come first, and navigation a’terwards.  Clearing out means going through the Custom-House, accordin’ to law.”

“And the Molly Swash has cleared out, I hope?”

“Sartain—­a more lawful clearance was never given in Wall Street; it’s for Key West and a market.  I did think of making it Havana and a market, but port-charges are lightest at Key West.”

“Then Key West is the place to which we are bound?”

“It ought to be, agreeable to papers; though vessels sometimes miss the ports for which they clear.”

Rose put no more questions; and her aunt, being conscious that she had not appeared to advantage in the affair of the “land-fall,” was also disposed to be silent.  Spike and Mulford had their attention drawn to the vessel, and the conversation dropped.

The reader can readily suppose that the Molly Swash had not been standing still all this time.  So far from this, she was running “down Sound,” with the wind on her quarter, or at south-west, making great head-way, as she was close under the south shore, or on the island side of the water she was in.  The vessel had no other motion than that of her speed, and the females escaped everything like sea-sickness, for the time being.  This enabled them to attend to making certain arrangements necessary to their comforts below, previously to getting into rough water.  In acquitting herself of this task, Rose received much useful advice from Josh, though his new assistant, Jack Tier, turned out to be a prize indeed, in the cabins.  The first was only a steward; but the last proved himself not only a handy person of his calling, but one full of resources—­a genius, in his way.  Josh soon became so sensible of his own inferiority, in contributing to the comforts of females, that he yielded the entire management of the “ladies’ cabin,” as a little place that might have been ten feet square, was called, to his uncouth-looking, but really expert deputy.  Jack waddled about below, as if born and brought up in such a place, and seemed every way fitted for his office.  In height, and in build generally, there was a surprising conformity between the widow and the steward’s deputy, a circumstance which might induce one to think they must often have been in each other’s way, in a space so small; though, in point of fact, Jack never ran foul of any one.  He seemed to avoid this inconvenience by a species of nautical instinct.

Towards the turn of the day, Rose had everything arranged, and was surprised to find how much room she had made for her aunt and herself, by means of Jack’s hints, and how much more comfortable it was possible to be, in that small cabin, than she had at first supposed.