surely come."

Three weeks the ship had been becalmed upon the banks, the dull monotony
of the dreary fog only relieved by the ringing of a large bell and the
blowing of horns, which were kept up at regular intervals during the day
and night, in order to prevent the ship being run down by some larger
vessel.

At length the morning came which brought a fair wind to fill the sails
of the _Anne_; and her passengers looked up to the blue heavens, and
blessed the light of the sun. Joy and hope again beamed from every face.
The little brown man's morose aspect alone remained unchanged.

The tall, lithe figure of Mr. Collins seemed to have grown two inches
higher, as he paced the deck with elastic steps and head erect. The
little tailor was at his post among the clouds at the mast-head, seeing
visions of green fields, and singing like a lark; Stephen Corrie was in
an ecstasy of mirth; and Tam Grant could not cross the deck without
cutting sundry mad capers which set all the rest laughing.

The women crept from their hiding-place in the dark depths of the
steerage, and sat smoking their black short pipes, and chatting in
lively tones to each other. Even Granny Williamson forgot to quarrel
with her daughter, and mounted a clean mutch on the occasion; the
soldier Mackenzie, to scold his diminutive wife; or Mistress Macdonald,
to annoy the Captain with threats of maternity, and bully her husband.
The Sultan of the deck--the dour Boreas himself--resigned for once his
dignity, and condescended to laugh and chat, and draw agreeable presages
of the future, from the fair wind and the smiling day.

Flora felt tranquilly happy, as she sat on a camp stool upon the deck,
with Josey nestled in her arms, and old Oscar basking in the warm sun at
her feet, rejoicing in the change which a few hours had made in their
prospects. The very waves that followed in their wake, and curled around
their prow, flashing and leaping in the sunlight, seemed to lift up
their voices and utter a strain of joyful merriment, in having escaped
the thrall of the dull, lethargic mist, which had so long held them in
silence and inactivity. Yesterday, and not a breath of air stirred the
leaden surface of the sea. No glance from the sun's bright eye looked
down upon them through the blinding, wildering white veil, suspended
between them and heaven. The mist penetrated every where--it hid the
sails, floated above the cold, damp, slippery deck, and entered the very