And this was the end of her dream! "You don't seem to take it in, Mollie," continued the surprised Zephas.
"It means a house in 'Frisco and a little cabin for you on the schooner when you like." "I don't want it! I won't have it! I shall stay here," she burst out with a half-passionate, half-childish cry, and ran into her bedroom, leaving the astonished Zephas helpless in his awkward consternation.
"By Gum! I must take her to 'Frisco right off, or she'll be havin' the high strikes here alone.

I oughter knowed it would come to this!" But although he consulted "Cap" Simmons the next day, who informed him it was all woman's ways when "struck," and advised him to pay out all the line he could at such delicate moments, she had no recurrence of the outbreak.

On the contrary, for days and weeks following she seemed calmer, older, and more "growed up;" although she resisted changing her seashore dwelling for San Francisco, she accompanied him on one or two of his "deep sea" trips down the coast, and seemed happier on their southern limits.

She had taken to reading the political papers and speeches, and some cheap American histories.

Captain Bunker's crew, profoundly convinced that their skipper's wife was a "woman's rights" fanatic, with the baleful qualities of "sea lawyer" superadded, marveled at his bringing her.
It was on returning home from one of these trips that they touched briefly at San Francisco, where the Secretary of the Fishing Company came on board.