... She always was sure there were some presents stored away
for herself and young Jack, her brother, in one of the lockers of the
little cabin. Poor Jack! how he used to frighten her by climbing the
shrouds and waving his cap from almost inaccessible heights. Poor
Jack! and Miss Prince climbed the step to look down the harbor again,
as if the ship were more than thirty days out from Amsterdam, and
might be expected at any time if the voyage had been favorable.
The house was at no great distance from the water side, though the
crowded buildings obscured the view from the lower stories. There was
nothing coming in from sea but a steam-tug, which did not harmonize
with these pleasant reminiscences, though as Miss Prince raised the
window a fine salt breeze entered, well warmed with the May sunshine.
It had the flavor of tar and the spirit of the high seas, and for a
wonder there could be heard the knocking of shipwrights' hammers,
which in old times were never silent in the town. As she sat there for
a few minutes in the window seat, there came to her other
recollections of her later girlhood, when she had stolen to this
corner for the sake of being alone with her pleasant thoughts, though
she had cried there many an hour after Jack's behavior had given them
the sorrow they hardly would own to each other. She remembered hearing
her father's angry voice down stairs. No! she would not think of that
again, why should she? and she shut the window and went back to be
sure that she had locked the camphor chest, and hung its key on the
flat-headed rusty nail overhead.
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