is
grand and beautiful!"

The latent smile, on the countenance of the governess might have betrayed
that she was imagining the deceased Admiral had not been altogether devoid
of the waggery of his vocation, had not a slight noise, which sounded like
the rustling of the wind, but which in truth was suppressed laughter,
proceeded from the upper room of the tower. The words, "It is lovely!"
were still on the lips of the youthful Gertrude, who saw all the beauty of
the picture her aunt had essayed to describe, without descending to the
humble employment of verbal criticism. But her voice became hushed, and
her attitude that of startled attention:--

"Did you hear nothing?" she said.

"The rats have not yet altogether deserted the mill," was the calm reply
of Wyllys.

"Mill! my dear Mrs Wyllys, will you persist in calling this picturesque
ruin _a mill_?"

"However fatal it may be to its charms, in the eyes of eighteen, I must
call it _a mill_."

"Ruins are not so plenty in this country, my dear governess," returned her
pupil, laughing, while the ardour of her eye denoted how serious she was
in defending her favourite opinion, "as to justify us in robbing them of
any little claims to interest they may happen to possess."

"Then, happier is the country! Ruins in a land are, like most of the signs
of decay in the human form, sad evidences of abuses and passions, which
have hastened the inroads of time. These provinces are like yourself, my
Gertrude, in their freshness and their youth, and, comparatively, in their
innocence also. Let us hope for both a long, an useful, and a happy
existence."

"Thank you for myself, and for my country; but still I can never admit
this picturesque ruin has been _a mill_."

"Whatever it may have been, it has long occupied its present place, and
has the appearance of continuing where it is much longer, which is more
than can be said of our prison, as you call yonder stately ship, in which
we are so soon to embark. Unless my eyes deceive me, Madam, those masts
are moving slowly past the chimnies of the town."

"You are very right, Wyllys. The seamen are towing the vessel into the
outer harbour, where they will warp her fast to the anchors, and thus
secure her, until they shall be ready to unmake their sails, in order to
put to sea in the morning. This is a manoeuvre often performed, and one
which the Admiral has so clearly explained, that I should find little
difficulty in superintendi