Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/73

 forth arrayed in yards of soft white flounces, with a straw spoon-bonnet upon her head.

For the moment she was the first Mrs. Mark tripping down to Ingram Wharf, where lay the Fortune of the Indies, newly off the ways and not yet ready to sail on her first voyage. Jane had reconstructed this scene in a dozen different aspects, but she brought to her little play-acting to-day a more vivid picture of the Fortune herself than she had ever before conceived, thanks to the Exhibition of Maritime Relics. She knew the model by heart; in imagination she could magnify it and set it alongside Ingram Wharf. She could see the shining new gear and the lean clipper hull that had caused Resthaven seamen to wonder and some to shake their heads. For the tales that began to be abroad of the miraculous achievements of the new ships were still scarcely believed, and Eastern seas were not yet white with the towering sails of Yankee clippers, racing every mile from home under their staggering load of canvas. No, Resthaven had doubted, but Mark Ingram's wife had never doubted, or so her great-granddaughter believed.