218 THE CRATER; the day it was shipped, and in the coffee there was no ap parent change. Of the butter, We do not choose to say anything. Bridget, in the prettiest manner imaginable, declared that as soon as she could set Dido at work store-rooms should be closely examined, and thoroughly cleaned. Then the galley made such a convenient and airy kitchen ! Mark had removed the house, the awning answering every purpose, and his wife declared that it was a pleasure to cook a meal for him, in so pleasant a place. The first dish Bridget ever literally cooked for Mark, with her own hands, or indeed for any one else, was a mess of grass, as it was the custom of even the most polished people of America then to call asparagus. They had gone together to the asparagus bed on Loam Island, and had. found the plant absolutely luxuriating in its fa vourite soil. The want of butter was the greatest defect in this mess, for, to say the truth, Bridget refused the ship s butter on this occasion, but luckily, enough oil remained to furnish a tolerable substitute. Mark declared he had never tasted anything in his life half so good ! At the end of the week, the governor, as Heaton had styled Mark, and as Bridget had "begun playfully to term him, gave the opinion that it was necessary for them to tear themselves away from their paradise. Never before, most certainly, had the Reef appeared to the young hus band a spot as delightful as he now found it, and it did seem to him very possible for one to pass a whole life on it without murmuring. His wife again and again assured him she had never before been half as happy, and that, mch as she loved Anne and the baby, she could remain month longer, without being in the least wearied. But
- was prudent to return to the Peak, for Mark had never
felt his former security against foreign invasion, since he was acquainted with the proximity of peopled islands. The passage was prosperous, and it gave the scene an air of civilization and life, to fall in with the Neshamony off the cove. She was coming in from Rancocus, on her last trip for the stores, having brought everything away but two of the goats. These had been driven up into the mountains, and there left. Bigelow had come away, and the whole party of colonists were now assembled at VuJ
