'and I've brought his body down with me, hopin'
Providence would open some way to get it back to our home in Boston. And
now, cap'n, you must help me.'

"Then the cap'n see what she was up to: and he hated to do it, and tried
to cut her off o' askin'; but she wa'n't to be put off.

"'Now, cap'n,' says she, 'ef you'll take me and the body o' my husband
on board to-night, I'd be willin' to reward you to any amount. Money
would be no object to me,' says she.

"Wal, you see, the cap'n he kind o' hated to do it; and he hemmed and
hawed, and he tried to 'pologize. He said 'twas a government vessel, and
he didn't know as he had a right to use it. He said sailors was apt to
be superstitious; and he didn't want 'em to know as there was a corpse
on board.

"'Wal,' says she, 'why need they know? 'For, you see, she was up to
every dodge; and she said she'd come along with it at dusk, in a box,
and have it just carried to a state-room, and he needn't tell nobody
what it was.

"Wal, Cap'n Tucker he hung off; and he tried his best to persuade her
to have a funeral, all quiet, there at Camden. He promised to get a
minister, and 'tend to it, and wait a day till it was all over, and then
take her on to Boston free gratis. But 'twas all no go. She wouldn't
hear a word to 't. And she reeled off the talk to him by the yard. And,
when talk failed, she took to her water-works again, till finally the
cap'n said his resolution was clean washed away, and he jest give up
hook and line; and so 'twas all settled and arranged, that, when evening
come, she was to be alongside with her boat, and took aboard.

"When she come out o' the cap'n's room to go off, I see Tom Toothacre a
watchin' on her. He stood there by the railin's a shavin' up a plug o'
baccy to put in his pipe. He didn't say a word; but he sort o' took the
measure o' that 'are woman with his eye, and kept a follerin' on her.

"She had a fine sort o' lively look, carried her head up and shoulders
back, and stepped as if she had steel springs in her heels.

"'Wal, Tom, what do ye say to her?' says Ben Bowdin.

"'I don't _say_ nothin',' says Tom, and he lit his pipe; 'tain't _my_
busness,' says he.

"'Wal, what do you _think?_' says Ben. Tom gin a hist to his trousers.

"'My thoughts is my own,' says he; 'and I calculate to keep 'em to
myself,' says he. And then he jest walked to the side of the vessel, and
watched the woman a gettin' ashore. There was a queer kind o' look in
T