l she's washing the color out of her
eyes now."

You see, father knew I set by my hair,--for in those days I rolled it
thick as a cable, almost as long, black as that cat's back,--and he
thought he'd touch me up a little.

"Wash the red from her cheek and the light from her look, and she'll
still have the queen's own tread," said Jim.

"If Loisy Currier'd heern that, you'd wish your cake was dough," says
father.

"I'll resk it," says Jim. "Loisy knows who's second choice, as well as
if you told her."

"But what about the Georges, Jim?" I asked; for though I hated to hear,
I could listen to nothing else.

"Georges? Oh, not much. Just like any other place."

"But what do you do down there?"

"Do? Why, we fish,--in the pleasant weather."

"And when it's not pleasant?"

"Oh, then we make things taut, hoist fores'l, clap the hellum into the
lee becket, and go below and amuse ourselves."

"How?" I asked, as if I hadn't heard it all a hundred times.

"One way 'n' another. Pipes, and mugs, and poker, if it a'n't too rough;
and if it is, we just bunk and snooze till it gets smooth."

"Why, Jim,--how do you know when that is?"

"Well, you can jedge,--'f the pipe falls out of your pocket and don't
light on the ceiling."

"And who's on deck?"

"There's no one on deck. There's no danger, no trouble, no nothing.
Can't drive ashore, if you was to try: hundred miles off, in the first
place. Hatches are closed, she's light as a cork, rolls over and over
just like any other log in the water, and there can't a drop get into
her, if she turns bottom-side up."

"But she never can right herself!"

"Can't she? You just try her. Why, I've known 'em to keel over and rake
bottom and bring up the weed on the topmast. I tell you now! there was
one time we knowed she'd turned a somerset, pretty well. Why? Because,
when it cleared and we come up, there was her two masts broke short
off!"

And Jim went home thinking he'd given me a night's sleep. But it was
cold comfort; the Georges seemed to me a worse place than the Hellgate.
And mother she kept murmuring,--"He layeth the beams of His chambers in
the waters, His pavilion round about Him is dark waters and thick clouds
of the skies." And I knew by that she thought it pretty bad.

So the days went in cloud and wind. The owners of the Feather 'd been
looking for her a month and more, and there were strange kind of rumors
afloat; and nobody mentioned Dan's name, unless they t