f "zomat avore he topped his boom for Swanwidge."

Having before me the certainty of a dull, monotonous afternoon, and
cheerless evening, without any visible means of amusement, I instantly
closed a bargain with Dick Hart (for such was the pilot's name) to
give me a cast to Swanwidge. In a short time I found myself on board
a trim, little pilot boat, gliding along the waters as the sun was
sliding his downward course, and shedding a mellow radiance over the
distant scenery towards Lytchett. The white steeple of Poole church
was lighted by the rays, while the town presented a neat and
picturesque appearance with the masts of the shipping cutting against
the blue sky.

Dick Hart formed no small feature in the scene as he stood at the helm
with his red cap and black, curly hair, smoking a short, clay pipe,
which like his own face, had become rather brown in service. He looked
around him with an air of independence and unconcern, as the "monarch
of all he surveyed," casting his eye up now and then at the trim of
his canvass, but more frequently keeping it on me. Dick began to open
his budget of chat, and I found him as full of fun as his mainsail was
full of nettles.

A voice from the forecastle called out to Dick, who was so intent on
his story that the helm slipped from his hand, and the ship flew up
in the wind, "Mind, skipper, or you will run down Old Betty." I was
astonished at the insinuation against my noble captain that he was
likely to behave rude to a lady, but my suspicions were soon removed,
when I saw Old Betty was a buoy, floating on the waters, adorned with
a furze bush. Old Betty danced merrily on the rippling wave with her
furze bush by way of a feather, with shreds of dried sea weed hanging
to it forming ribbons to complete the head dress of the lady buoy.
The nearer we approached, the more rapid did Betty dance, and when
we passed close alongside of her, she curtsied up and down as if to
welcome our visit. Dick narrated why a buoy placed at the head of a
mud bank obtained the name of a _lady fair_, and I briefly noted it
down.

Many years ago a single lady resided at Poole, of plain manners,
unaffected simplicity, affable, yet retiring, and--

"Passing rich with forty pounds a-year."

The gentry courted her, but she still adhered to her secluded habits.
Year after year rolled on, and though some may have admired her,
she was never led to the altar, and consequently her condition was
_unaltered