The Pilot and his Wife

with a little belfry like a sentry-box and serving as a landmark, which lies drearily down by the sea, and under which on Sundays a pilot-boat or two may be seen lying-to whil

tages of the sailor population, skippers' houses, and villas; and in every available spot, in every creek or bay where there is barely room for a vessel, the white timbers of ships in course of construction come into view. It is

eing so complete or rich: but even then were becoming manifest

od climbing the hillside behind, which was the property of Captain Beck; and here, until, as he proposed to do in a couple of years' time, he retired from the sea and invested his fort

s occupation on land, and as much as he could do, as member of the coast commission. But he used generally to come over on Saturdays in his pretty sail-boat and remain over Sunda

ave as a cadet, and he seemed to enjoy particular confidential relations with nearly every one of them, or, at all events, to be in possession of some secret or other which only they two knew. They had all kinds of jokes and expressions from their younger days which were unintelligible to the rest; and what is vulgarly called "chaff" formed, perhaps, the sta

was a certain indefinable harmony and grace, not only about her perhaps rather small figure, but about everything she did. But if she was not considered pretty, it was agreed on all sides that she had great sense; and among her friends she was always the one they elected to confide in, whenever they had anything on their minds. That she never confided anything to them in r

ved. Before her, therefore, he always displayed now the broad, manly side of his character-which he could do with so much grace-and the coquetry which was at the bottom of this was not without its effect. She had always made rather a hero of him in her own mind, and he had created the flattering impression now that the light and flirting manner which he adopted towards young ladies, and which had rather qualified her

nd in spite of their different natures and unequal social position, these two women soon came to feel, if not exactly drawn to one another, mutually interested in each other. At the same time, as Elizabeth was not blind to the diplomacy of the house, she had soon perceived that of all the young ladies who came there, Marie Forstberg was the one who had the best chance, and who indeed best deserved to be the young lieutenant's bride; and although she tried to believe that she was merely a resigned looker-on herself, she seemed to feel every Sunday, when Marie Forstberg came, that a certain disagreeable impression had grown up in her mind about her during the week which it took some time to thaw. W

l-that of parlour-maid-she filled to perfection; and her upright figure and expressive face attracted many an admiring glance on Sundays, when in her becoming striped chintz dress and white apron, and with her luxuriant hair turned up in the simplest manner, she carried the tea or coffee things out to the guests in the summer-house. She could feel that Carl Beck

ugh moored in the bay under the house. He was very particular about the boat, and during his absence it was to Elizabeth's sole care that she was intrusted. There was always someth

his father to his stepmother; and Madam Beck would generally read it by herself first, and then it would be read alou

ident; but she knew that he had seen her with it in her hand. The same day they had wild strawberries at dinner, and there were no strangers, and

, and afterwards he had fixed his eyes upon his plate for a long while without raising them. She felt that the remark had

the boat the next morning to help him with the parcels, he would execute her commissions himself. When Madame Beck suggested Elizabeth he eagerly assen

ttle time after, she came up to him, and

o Arendal with

asked, with affected indifferen

ay;" and she turned from him, and left him gazing after her, partly in confusion, and partly

e in the boat with him, which Madam Beck found very commendable on her part. Indeed she ought to have known herself, she said, that it was scarcely