ne woman. She felt obliged to ask advice of a
friend; in fact, she asked the advice of three friends, and each
responded with a cordiality delightful to describe. It happened that
there were no less than three retired shipmasters in the old seaport
town of Longport who felt the justice of our heroine's claims upon
society. She was not only an extremely pleasing person, but she had
the wisdom to conceal from Captain Asa Shaw that she had taken any one
for an intimate counselor but himself; and the same secrecy was
observed out of deference to the feelings and pride of Captain Crowe
and Captain Witherspoon. The deplored necessity of re-shingling her
roof was the great case in which she threw herself upon their advice
and assistance.

Now, if it had been the new planking of a deck, or the selection and
stepping of a mast, the counsel of two of these captains would have
been more likely to avail a helpless lady. They were elderly men, and
had spent so much of their lives at sea that they were not very well
informed about shingling their own houses, having left this to their
wives, or agents, or some other land-fast persons. They recognized the
truth that it would not do to let the project be publicly known, for
fear of undue advantage being taken over an unprotected woman; but
each found his opportunity to acquire information, and to impart it in
secret to Mrs. Lunn. It sometimes occurred to the good woman that she
had been unwise in setting all her captains upon the same course,
especially as she really thought that the old cedar shingles might
last, with judicious patching, for two or three years more. But, in
spite of this weakness of tactics, she was equal to her small
campaign.

It now becomes necessary that the reader should have some closer
acquaintance with the captains themselves; and to that end confession
must be made of the author's belief in a theory of psychological
misfits, or the occasional occupation of large-sized material bodies
by small-sized spiritual tenants, and the opposite of this, by which
small shapes of clay are sometimes animated in the noblest way by
lofty souls. This was the case with Captain Witherspoon, who, not
being much above five feet in height, bore himself like a giant, and
carried a cane that was far too tall for him. Not so Captain Crowe,
who, being considerably over six feet, was small-voiced and easily
embarrassed, besides being so unconscious of the strength and size of
his gre