sick aboard the boat?"

"Not at all."

"That's curous! Women 'most alluz is,--'specially wen it's so ruffly as
it is to-day. Was bubby sick any?"

"No."

"Wa-al, that's very fortnit, for I don't blieve he'll be sick wen he
grows up an' goes walin'. It's pooty tryin', the fust two or three weeks
out, ginerally. How young is he a-goin' to begin?"

"I do not think he will ever go to sea."

"Not a-goin' to sea? Wy, his father's a captain, I 'xpect; a'n't he?"

"No."

"Mate, then, a'n't he?"

"He is not a sailor at all."

"Ha'n't never ben to sea?"

"Never."

Oh, the look of wide-mouthed astonishment which took possession of
Youth's hitherto vacant features, at thus encountering a strong-looking
man, in the prime of life, who had never been to sea, and a healthy,
sturdy boy, whose parents did not mean that he ever should! He had no
more to say; every faculty was, for at least an hour, devoted to the
contemplation of these _lusus naturae_, thus presented to his vision.

At last, the road, which had long been in a condition of ominous
second-childhood, suddenly died a natural death at the foot of a steep
hill, where a rail-fence presented itself as a barrier to farther
progress. The bars were soon removed by Youth, who triumphantly
announced, as Cha-os walked slowly through the opening thus presented,--

"Now we're on Ga'ed, an' I'll run along and take down the next bars, if
you kin drive. Git along, Tom,--you ha'n't got nothin' but two feathers
ahind you now."

"How far is it to the Light-house?" inquired Mysie, faintly.

"Ony 'bout four mild," was the discouraging reply, as Youth "loped" on
in advance.

"Four mild!" and such miles! The only road, a faint track in the grass,
now undiscernible in the gathering gloom, now on the slope of steep
hills marked by deep gullies worn by the impetuous autumn rains, and
down which the poor old "shay" jerked along in a series of bumps and
jolts threatening to demolish at once that patriarchal vehicle and the
bones of its occupants.

At last, however, from the top of one of these declivities, the
brilliant, flashing light of the long-watched-for Pharos greeted Mysie's
despairing eyes, and woke new hopes of warmth, rest, and shelter. But
never did bewildering _ignisfatuus_ retire more persistently from the
pursuit of unwary traveller than did that Light-house from the occupants
of that creaking "shay"; and it was not till total darkness had settled
upon the earth