seemed very improbable. There were a
good many half-dressed people in the saloon, and a woman came running
out of her state-room straight to Mavering. She was in her stocking
feet, and her hair hung down her back.

"Oh! are we going down?" she implored him. "Have we struck? Oughtn't we
to pray--somebody? Shall I wake the children?"

"Mavering reassured her, and told her there was no danger.

"Well, then," she said, "I'll go back for my shoes."

"Yes, better get your shoes."

The saloon rose round him and sank. He controlled his sickness by
planting a chair in the centre and sitting in it with his eyes shut. As
he grew more comfortable he reflected how he had calmed that woman, and
he resolved again to spend his life in doing good. "Yes, that's the only
ticket," he said to himself, with involuntary frivolity. He thought
of what the officer had said, and he helplessly added, "Circus
ticket--reserved seat." Then he began again, and loaded himself with
execration.

The boat got into Portland at nine o'clock, and Mavering left her,
taking his hand-bag with him, and letting his trunk go on to Boston.

The officer who received his ticket at the gangplank noticed the
destination on it, and said, "Got enough?"

"Yes, for one while." Mavering recognised his acquaintance of the night
before.

"Don't like picnics very much."

"No," said Mavering, with abysmal gloom. "They don't agree with me.
Never did." He was aware of trying to make his laugh bitter. The officer
did not notice.

Mavering was surprised, after the chill of the storm at sea, to find it
rather a warm, close morning in Portland. The restaurant to which the
hackman took him as the best in town was full of flies; they bit him
awake out of the dreary reveries he fell into while waiting for his
breakfast. In a mirror opposite he saw his face. It did not look
haggard; it looked very much as it always did. He fancied playing a part
through life--hiding a broken heart under a smile. "O you incorrigible
ass!" he said to himself, and was afraid he had said it to the young
lady who brought him his breakfast, and looked haughtily at him from
under her bang. She was very thin, and wore a black jersey.

He tried to find out whether he had spoken aloud by addressing her
pleasantly. "It's pretty cold this morning."

"What say?"

"Pretty cool."

"Oh yes. But it's pretty clo-ose," she replied, in her Yankee
cantillation. She went away and left him to the bacon and