e Bay of Biscay; and by this time they had thoroughly settled
down and become almost as perfectly at home in the ship as though they
had been born on salt water. The gentlemen chatted, smoked, walked the
poop, and played chess together, romped with the children, or read aloud
to the ladies whilst they reclined in their deck-chairs and pretended to
work, and otherwise made themselves generally useful. This was the
usual disposition of their day from about nine a.m. to about eight
o'clock p.m., the married ladies very frequently joining in their
husbands' post-prandial promenade on the poop until the latter hour,
when, the air getting cool, the whole party would adjourn to the saloon,
and, Dr and Mrs Henderson producing their violins and Mr Gaunt his
flute, Mrs Gaunt or Miss Stanhope would open the piano which formed
part of the saloon furniture, and the sounds of a very capital chamber
concert would float out upon the evening air, to the great delectation
of Captain Blyth, the officer of the watch, the helmsman, and--in a
lesser degree, because less perfectly heard by them--the watch clustered
forward on the forecastle-head.

In this quiet, methodical way life went on with the occupants of the
saloon for some time; but at length ambition entered into and seized
upon the imagination of Miss Stanhope, and she determined to learn to
steer. Hour after hour had she watched the helmsmen standing in more or
less graceful attitudes at the wheel, with their sinewy hands upon the
spokes, now drawing them gently toward them a few inches only to push
them as far away again a minute or two later. It looked ridiculously
easy; yet there was grandeur in the thought that, by these simple,
effortless movements, the destiny of the ship and all within her was to
a large extent controlled. There was something almost sublime, to her
imagination, in the ability to "guide the furrowing keel on its way
along the trackless deep," as she expressed it to herself; and she
determined she would learn how to do it.

At length, making her way up on the poop one glorious evening after
dinner--the ship being at the time about in the latitude of Madeira, and
close-hauled on the starboard tack, with a nice little eight-knot breeze
blowing, and everything set that would draw, from the skysail down, and
with the water as smooth as it ever is under such circumstances--she
descried Ned standing aft at the wheel, with his left arm resting on its
rim, his r