in their own eyes, was their crowning virtue.

"Ramsey," drawled one of them, who somehow seemed the more forceful of
the two. He spoke as if amazed at his own self-restraint. She whisked
round to him. He made his eyes heavy: "Have you had any proper
introduction to these--gentlemen?"

A white-jacket, holding a large hand-bell by its tongue, bowed low
before the captain, received a nod, and minced away. With suspended
breath the girl stared an instant on her brother, then on the captain,
and then on his father; but as her eyes came round to Hugh his solemnity
caught her unprepared, and, with every curl shaking, she broke out in a
tinkling laugh so straight from the heart, so innocent, and so helpless
that even the frightened old woman chuckled. Ramsey wheeled, snatched
the nurse round, and hurried her off to a stair, hanging to her arm,
tiptoeing, dancing, and carolling in the rhythm of the supper-bell
below:

"Ringading tingalingaty, ringadang ding,
Ringading tingalingaty, ringadang ding."

Red and dumb, the questioner glared after them until, near one of the
great paddle-boxes, they vanished below. But his brother, the one who
had the trick of widening his eyes, found words. "Captain Courteney," he
said, "by what right does your son--or even do you, sir--take the
liberty, on the hurricane-deck of a steamboat, to scrape acquaintance
with an unprotec----?"

The captain had turned his back. "Hugh," he affably said, "will you see
what these young gentlemen want?" And then to the older man: "Come,
father, let's go to supper." They went.

VI

HAYLE'S TWINS

Hugh was grateful for this task in diplomacy, yet wondered what mess he
should make of it.

He was here for just such matters, let loose from tutor and books for
the summer, to study the handling of a steamboat, one large part of
which, of course, was handling the people aboard. Both pilots, up
yonder, knew this was his role. Already he had tried his unskill--or let
"Ramsey" try it--and had learned a point or two. She had shown him, at
least twice, what value there might be in a well-timed, unmanageable
laugh. But a well-timed, unmanageable laugh is purely a natural gift. If
it was to come to his aid, it would have to come of itself. Lucian, the
twin who had asked the last question, turned upon him.

Hugh smilingly lifted a pacifying hand. "You're entirely mistaken," he
said. "Nobody's tried to scrape acquaintance." In the midst of the las