Rest receives the little people; again the Ancient
Mariner is there to welcome them. But a shade of sadness is upon the old
man's face, and the children are not so gay as is their wont; for all
things must have an end, and holidays are no exception to the rule.

"Isn't it too bad," said William, looking very sober,--"isn't it too bad
that this is to be the last of it?"

"Not so bad for you as for me," replied the Ancient Mariner; and the old
man looked as gloomy and forsaken as if he had been cast away in the
cold again. But he soon cheered up, and in a much livelier way he said,
"Well now, my hearties, since this is to be the last of it, suppose we
close the story in the 'Crow's Nest,' where we first began it; for you
see, if the Dean and I were rescued from the desolate island and the
savages, we were not home yet. Now, what do you say to that, my dears?"

"The Crow's Nest! Yes, yes, the Crow's Nest!" cried the children all at
once; and away they scampered to it, as light and merry as if they had
never for an instant been sad at thought of the parting that was so soon
to come.

And now once more our little party are together in the dear old rustic
vine-clad arbor, and, as on the first day of meeting there, the old man
takes his long clay pipe out of his mouth, and sticks it in a rafter
overhead; then around little Alice he puts his great, big arm, and he
draws the fair-haired, bright-eyed child close to his side, and thus
"ballasted," as he says, he "bears away for port."

* * * * *

"Now, to bring our story to an end," ran on the Captain, "I must say
first that the _Rob Roy_ was a good, stout ship; the master a bluff,
good-hearted Scotchman; the mate a kindly man, and altogether different
from the red-faced mate that was on the _Blackbird_; and the people were
all just as good and kind to us as the savages had been. But they gave
us right away so much coffee and ship's biscuit and other things to eat
and drink (none of which had we tasted for three years and more), that
we got a dreadful colic, and had like to have died. But the next day we
were quite well again, and then we related to the Captain and everybody
on board the story of our adventures. The worst was, they would make us
tell our story over and over again, as I have been telling it to you,
until we almost wished we had never been rescued at all. It is, indeed,
a fearful thing in anybody's life ever to have met