"A stiff breeze, captain; we shall soon be in New Orleans at this rate. Talk about yellow fever; it can not be worse than sea-sickness. If a good appetite does not come to my rescue, on reaching land I shall pass for a live skeleton.

"But, captain, who is this pretty stewardess you have on board? and you a family-man, too; eh, captain? And what child is that she has the care of? And what the deuce ails her?—so young and so sedate, so pretty and so uncome-atable! I don't understand it."

"I don't know that it is necessary you should," said the old captain, dryly.

"That's true enough; and if she were homely, she might sigh her soul out before my curiosity would be piqued; but a pretty woman in trouble is another thing, you know. I feel an immense desire to raise a smile on that pretty face, though it could hardly look more enchanting under any circumstances."

"Look here, Fritz," said the captain; "while that young creature is aboard my ship, she is under my protection. Understand? Not that any of your coxcombical nonsense could make any impression on her, for her heart is heavy with sorrow of some kind, but I won't have her annoyed or insulted. I don't know her history myself, nor shall I ask to know; her post as stewardess is a mere sinecure, though she does not know it.

"She came to me with that child in her arms, in great distress to get to New Orleans, and proposed herself as stewardess. I saw she was in trouble, somehow—young, beautiful, and unprotected; I have daughters just her age; I imagined them in a similar position. Her dignified modesty was a sufficient recommendation and guaranty. I knew she would be hurt at the offer of a free passage, so I told her that I needed a second stewardess. That is all I know about her; and, as I said before, while she is aboard my ship, I will protect her as if she were my own child;" and the old man stowed away a tobacco-quid, and walked fore and aft the cabin, with a determined step.

"Certainly," said the foiled Fritz; "your sentiments do you honor, captain. But I have not seen her for two or three days; is she sick?"

"No; but the boy is, and I told her to let every thing go by the board, and attend to him till he was better. Beautiful child he is too; I have never seen a finer one. Doctor Perry thinks he will soon right him."

"Doctor Perry!" exclaimed Fritz, with a spasm of jealousy; "it is my opinion he will make a long job curing that boy."

"The doctor is not one of your sort," said the captain; "her very defenselessness would be to him her surest shield. The doctor is a fine man, Mr. Fritz."

"Yes, and young and unmarried," answered Fritz, with a prolonged whistle. "We shall see," said he, taking the captain's spy-glass to look at a vessel that was looming up in the distance.

"Charley appears brighter to-day," said Rose to Doctor Perry. "Captain Lucas is very kind to me; but I am very anxious to get about to fulfill my engagements. Don't you think my boy will be well soon?"

"There is every prospect of it," said Doctor Perry. "He is improving fast. I will stay by him, if you will allow me," said he, more anxious to give Rose a reprieve from the confined air of the cabin than solicitous for the "fulfillment of her engagements."

"Thank you," replied Rose, in her usual grave tone, without raising her eyes; "but I would not like to trouble you."

"Nothing you could ask would trouble me," replied the doctor, "unless you asked me to leave your presence."

Rose drew her girlish form up to its full height as she answered: "I did not think you would take advantage of my position to insult me, sir."

"Nor have I, nor do I," replied the doctor, with a flushed brow. "I love you—I love you honorably; I would make you my wife; I am incapable of insulting any woman."

Tears sprang to Rose's eyes as she answered, "Forgive me; I can not explain to you why I am so sensitive to a fancied insult."

"Nor need you," replied the doctor, as an expression of acute pain passed over his fine features; "Rose, let me stand between you and harm; be my wife—my own, dear, honored wife."

"Oh no, no, no!" gasped Rose, retreating as he approached her; "you do not know—or you would not. Sir!" and the color receded from her lip and cheek—"that boy!—God knows I believed myself an honored wife."

"Rose," again repeated the doctor, without heeding her confession, "will you be my wife?"

"I can not," said Rose, moved to tears by his generous confidence, "that would be sin—I have no heart to give you. Though all is mystery, though I never more may see him, I love the father of my boy."

The doctor rose, and walked the little cabin.

"Is this your final answer?" asked he, returning to the side of Rose.

"I can give no other, much as I thank you for this proof of your—" and here her voice again failed her.

"Rose," exclaimed the doctor, passionately seizing her hand, "I will not ask you to love me. I will be satisfied if you will allow me to love you."

Poor Rose, none knew better than herself how eloquently the heart may plead; and because she knew this, because only to the voice of the loved one would the chords of her heart vibrate, did she turn away from that pleading voice and those brimming eyes.

For a long time Rose sat with her face buried in her hands after the doctor left her. It was hard so to repay such trust. Could he only be her brother—her counselor—but no—her path in life must be solitary.

Would the cloud never roll away?

Must it always be so?

Would Vincent never come to claim her?

Would a life of purest rectitude never meet its reward?

Would the world's scornful "Magdalena" be her earth-baptism?

Would the sweet fount of her boy's life be turned to bitterness?

Would he grow up to blush at his mother's name?

Would his hand be raised in deadly fray to avenge the undeserved taunt which yet he knew not how to repel?

O, Vincent!

Rose's refusal of Doctor Perry but added fuel to the flame; it is the unattainable we seek, the unattainable only that we fancy can satisfy; the unattainable that at any cost we must have.

How could he give her up? How think of her in the great, busy, wicked city, to which she was going, unfriended and penniless? Was there no way he could be of service to her? No way in which, without offending her sensitiveness, he could shield her from suffering and insult. Who was the father of her child? She "still loved him," believed him true to her—looked forward to the time when his honor should be vindicated on her behalf.

The doctor knew more of the world. The film would fall from her eyes by and by; he would wait patiently for that moment: then, perhaps, she would not turn away from him. She was too noble to cherish the memory of one she believed to be base. What alliance could purity have with pollution? Poor, trusting, wronged Rose! How immeasurably superior was she even now, and scorned thus, to the pharisaical of her own sex who, intrenched outwardly in purity, and pointing the finger of scorn at the suspected of their own sex, yet hold out the ready hand of welcome to him who comes into their presence, foul from the pollution of promiscuous harlotry.

Beautiful consistency! Pure Christianity! From the decision of such an incompetent tribunal, thank God! Rose could appeal to a Higher Court.

Rose was a daily marvel to the conceited Fritz. Accustomed in his grosser moments to those debasing liaisons which so infallibly unfit a man for the society of the pure in heart, he could not comprehend the reserve—even hauteur—with which the pretty Rose repelled every advance to an acquaintance.

At first, his surprised vanity whispered that it was only a cunning little ruse, to enhance the value of surrender, but this astute conclusion was doomed to be quenched by Rose's determinate and continued persistency. Then Fritz had fallen into the common error of fancying that to know one woman was to know the whole sex; not dreaming that it is necessary to begin with a different alphabet, in order to read understandingly each new female acquaintance;—a little fact which most men blunder through life without finding out.

In vain he displayed his white hands. In vain he donned successively his black suit, his gray suit, and his drab suit (which last he never resorted to except in very obstinate cases); in vain he tied his cravats in all sorts of fanciful forms; in vain he played "sick" in his crimson silk dressing-gown, or languished on deck in his Jersey overcoat. In vain he, who detested children, made advances through Charley, who was now convalescent; in vain he remarked in Rose's hearing that "his gloves needed mending," and that "the buttons were off his linen." Rose might as well have been deaf, dumb, and blind, for all the notice she took of him.

It was unaccountable. Fritz was piqued—in fact he did not like it, and consulted his never-failing solace, the looking-glass, to see what was the matter. There was still Fritz enough left (such was the verdict of the looking-glass), spite of sea-sickness, to satisfy any reasonable woman.

"Pooh! Rose was a stupid little thing; that was the amount of it; there was no use wasting his time on her;" and this last, by the way, was the only sensible reflection he had yet arrived at. He could fancy very well why she had not liked Doctor Perry (the doctor's distrait manner of late had attracted his notice). "Perry was well enough, but"—and Fritz finished the sentence by affectionately caressing his adolescent mustache.

"Yes, Rose was a stupid little automaton—she had no soul." Fritz had so much soul himself, that he considered that article a sine qu non in any woman he honored with his notice.

Meanwhile the gallant vessel plowed her plashing way through the pathless waters. Over the mermaids, if there were any, over the coral reefs, over the wondrously beautiful sea-weeds, over the sheeted dead in their monumentless sepulchers; dashing—plunging—creaking—soaring and sinking—defying winds and storms—scattering the dolphins—startling the sea-birds—hailing cheerily the homeward and outward bound—careering as gayly over the treacherous waves, as if the shivering of a mast, a little water in the hold, or the leaden lids of the pilot, might not land the passengers with their joys, sorrows, and embryo plans on that measureless shore whence there is no return boat.