he let out a
laugh, and then she reached up a hand and began unplaiting her
pigtail.

"Be you the Captain of this here ship?" asks she, looking up and
addressing herself to one of the officers leaning overside.

"Yes, my man; this here's the _Ranger_ frigate, and I'm her Captain.
I'm sorry for you--it goes against my grain to impress men in this
fashion: but the law's the law, and we're ready for sea, and if
you've any complaints to make I hope you'll cut 'em short."

"I don't know," says Sal, "that I've any complaints to make, except
that I was born a woman. That I went on to marry that pea-green
tailor yonder is my own fault, and we'll say no more about it."

By this time all the women on the tender were following Sal's example
and unshredding their back-hair. By this time, too, every man aboard
the frigate was gathered at the bulwarks, looking down in wonderment.
There beneath 'em stood a joke too terrible to be grasped in one
moment.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rogers," says the Captain in a voice cold as
a knife, "but you appear to have made a mistake."

The little officer had turned white as a sheet: but he managed to get
in his say before the great laugh came. "I have, Sir, to my sorrow,"
says he, turning viciously on Hancock; "a mistake to be cast up
against me through my career. But I reckon," he adds, "I leave the
punishment for it in good hands." He glanced at Sally.

"You may lay to that, young man!" says she heartily. "You may lay to
that every night when you says your prayers."

FRENCHMAN'S CREEK.

A REPORTED TALE.

Frenchman's Creek runs up between overhanging woods from the
western shore of Helford River, which flows down through an earthly
paradise and meets the sea midway between Falmouth and the dreadful
Manacles--a river of gradual golden sunsets such as Wilson painted;
broad-bosomed, holding here and there a village as in an arm
maternally crook'd, but with a brooding face of solitude. Off the
main flood lie creeks where the oaks dip their branches in the high
tides, where the stars are glassed all night long without a ripple,
and where you may spend whole days with no company but herons and
sandpipers:

Helford River, Helford River,
Blessed may you be!
We sailed up Helford River
By Durgan from the sea. . . .

And about three-quarters of a mile above the ferry-crossing (where is
the best anchorage) you will find the entrance of the creek they call
F