12 



THE SEA. 



boys and she makes our tea. I never could make tea, but any one can wash a boy/ 

 The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his kindness as well she 

 might, for she had been covered every night with his great coat, while he had for his own 

 bed the bare boards and a rug." " If a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky," continues 

 Dickens, "down Mark tumbled into the cabin, and presently up he came again with a 

 woman in his arms, or half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a saucepan, or a 

 basket, or something animate or inanimate that he thought would be the better for the air. 



NEW YORK BAY, LOOKING ACROSS TO STATEN ISLAND. 



If an hour or two of fine weather in the middle of the day tempted those who seldom or 

 never came on deck at other times to crawl into the long-boat, or lie down upon the spare 

 spars and try to eat, there in the centre of the group was Mr. Tapley, handing about 

 salt beef and biscuit, or dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the children's provisions 

 with his pocket-knife for their greater ease and comfort, or reading aloud from a venerable 

 newspaper, or singing some roaring old song to a select party, or writing the beginnings 

 of letters to their friends at home for people who couldn't write, or cracking jokes with 

 the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging half-drowned from a shower 

 of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or other : but always doing something for the 

 general entertainment. " 



