cargoes. Jane's imagination ran like fire between the brown lines and filled in the stiff quaint words with shining images. There were letters, too, from shipboard, augmenting the stilted log with a few fair pictures.
. . . To-day the Titania stood up to us for a race, coming handily down on our quarter, but you may imagine we could scarcely let our Fortune be beat by a Marblehead packet. I let the men, who were eager, crack on all sail, it being a stiff breeze, and before dark we lost the Titania, hull-down to eastward, and reached Torres Straits two days before her.
So wrote Great-grandfather Mark, with veiled pride, in the year 1848. So, also, read Jane, gloatingly, straining her eyes, as usual, in the dim light of one clouded lunette.
. . . To-day we spoke the Gloria, homeward bound, and stood off and on whilst Mark came aboard, he having business with me. He has done well, but contemplates touching at Borneo, which I advise against. However, the young ventures often succeed. I shall not say him nay. He will bear you this letter, for he will see Resthaven sooner than I, and by him I send some few trinkets for my dear little maids.
Many such "trinkets" still clustered upon
