"
"Not in the least, I assure you. Is it that tangled skein? Let me help
you."
"Oh thank you. It is so tiresome, and I am not in the least inclined to
be industrious."
I took the wool and set to work. It was very easy, after all; I pulled
the loops through, and back again and through from the other side, and I
found the ends, and began to wind it up on a piece of paper. It is
singular, though, how the unaided wool can tie itself into every kind of
a knot--reef, carrick bend, bowline, bowline in a bight, not to mention
a variety of hitches and indescribable perversions of entanglement. I
was getting on very well, though. I looked up at her face, pale and
weary with a sleepless night, but beautiful--ah yes--beautiful beyond
compare. She smiled faintly.
"You are very clever with your fingers. Where did you learn it? Have you
a sister who makes you wind her wool for her at home?"
"No. I have no sister. I went to sea once upon a time."
"Were you ever in the navy, Mr. Griggs?"
"Oh no. I went before the mast."
"But you would not learn to unravel wool before the mast. I suppose your
mother taught you when you were small--if you ever were small."
"I never had a mother that I can remember--I learned to do all those
things at sea."
"Forgive me," she said, guessing she had struck some tender chord in my
existence.
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