impartiality, candor, and scorn of all trumpery feeling, was sometimes

unable to make out the reason why a queer little middy of his own should

now stand upon the giddy truck of fame, while himself, still ahead of

him in the Navy List, might pace his quarter-deck and have hats touched

to him, but never a heart beat one pulse quicker. Jealous he was not;

but still, at least in his own family--

Leaving her dear father to his meditations, which Faith ran up to kiss

away, fair Dolly put on a plain hat and scarf, quite good enough for

the fishermen, and set off in haste for the Round-house, to see the

expedition start. By the time she was there, and had lifted the sashes,

and got the spy-glass ready, the flow of the tide was almost spent, and

the brimming moment of the slack was nigh. For this all the folk of the

village waited, according to the tradition of the place; the manhood

and boyhood, to launch forth; old age, womanhood, and childhood, to

contribute the comfort of kind looks and good-by. The tides, though not

to be compared to the winds in fickleness, are capricious here, having

sallies of irregularity when there has been a long period of northeast

winds, bringing a counter-flow to the Atlantic influx. And a man must

be thoroughly acquainted with the coast, as well as the moon and the

weather, to foretell how the water will rise and fall there. For the

present, however, there was no such puzzle. The last lift of the quiet

tide shone along the beach in three straight waves, shallow steps that

arose inshore, and spent themselves without breaking.

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