nd of house, where he and many other sailors
of the better order were in the habit of lodging, during their stay on
the New England shores. Widow Smith, he said, had a parlour for herself
and her daughters, in which Lois might sit, while he went about the
business that, as he had told her, would detain him in Boston for a day
or two, before he could accompany her to her uncle's at Salem. All this
had been to a certain degree arranged on ship-board; but Captain
Holdernesse, for want of anything else that he could think of to talk
about, recapitulated it as he and Lois walked along. It was his way of
showing sympathy with the emotion that made her grey eyes full of
tears, as she started up from the pier at the sound of his voice. In
his heart he said, 'Poor wench! poor wench! it's a strange land to her,
and they are all strange folks, and, I reckon, she will be feeling
desolate. I'll try and cheer her up.' So he talked on about hard facts,
connected with the life that lay before her, until they reached Widow
Smith's; and perhaps Lois was more brightened by this style of
conversation, and the new ideas it presented to her, than she would
have been by the tenderest woman's sympathy.

'They are a queer set, these New Englanders,' said Captain Holdernesse.
'They are rare chaps for praying; down on their knees at every turn of
their life. Folk are none so busy in a new country, else they would
have to pray like me, with a "Yo-hoy!" on each side of my prayers, and
a rope cutting like fire through my hand. Yon pilot was for calling us
all to thanksgiving for a good voyage, and lucky escape from the
pirates; but I said I always put up my thanks on dry land, after I had
got my ship into harbour. The French colonists, too, are vowing
vengeance for the expedition against Canada, and the people here are
raging like heathens--at least, as like as godly folk can be--for the
loss of their charter. All that is the news the pilot told me; for, for
all he wanted us to be thanksgiving instead of casting the lead, he was
as down in the mouth as could be about the state of the country. But
here we are at Widow Smith's! Now, cheer up, and show the godly a
pretty smiling Warwickshire lass!'

Anybody would have smiled at Widow Smith's greeting. She was a comely,
motherly woman, dressed in the primmest fashion in vogue twenty years
before, in England, among the class to which she belonged. But,
somehow, her pleasant face gave the lie to her dres