ny me. To this she would by no means consent
until I had brought her the Captain's leave.

"You may take her my leave," said he, with a sudden flush on his face,
"and my apologies for having neglected to request the honour of her
company. The fact is," he added, with a hard glance at me, "Miss
Plinlimmon's sense of discipline is so rare a thing that I am always
forgetting to do justice to it. Were it possible to find a whole
crew so conscientious I would undertake to sail to the North Pole."

I conveyed this answer to Plinny, and it visibly gratified her.
She retired at once to the ladies' cabin to indue her poke-bonnet
with coquelicot trimmings. Her apron she retained, observing that on
an expedition of this sort one should never be taken at unawares, and
that when at Rome you should do as the Romans did. "By which, my
dear Harry," she explained, "you are not to understand me to refer to
their Papist observances, such as kissing a man's toe. Were such a
request proffered to me even at the cannon's mouth, I trust my
courage would find an answer. 'No, no,' I would say,

"'I will not bow within the House of Rimmon:
Yours faithfully, Amelia Plinlimmon.'"

As we reached the head of the companion-ladder Captain Branscome, who
was standing just aft of the wheel, behind Mr. Rogers's shoulder, and
scanning the shore through his glass, made a motion to step forward
and hand her on deck. This was ever his courteous way, and I turned
a moment later in some surprise, to find that, instead of closing the
glass, he had lifted it, and was holding it again to his eye, at the
same time keeping his right shoulder turned to us.

While we looked, he lowered it and made his bow, yet with something
of a preoccupied air.

"Good morning, ma'am. You are very welcome on deck, and I trust that
Harry conveyed the apology I sent by him."

"I beg you will not mention it, sir. It is true that I suffered from
the curiosity which outspoken critics have called the bane of my sex;
yet, believe me, I was far from accusing you, knowing how many
responsibilities must weigh on the captain of an expedition, even
though it fare as prosperously as ours."

"True, ma'am," Captain Branscome tapped his spyglass absent-mindedly,
and seemed on the point of lifting it again. "Though, with your
permission, I will add 'D.V.'"

"Yes--yes"--Plinny smiled a cheerful approval--"we are ever in the
Divine Hand; not more really, perhaps, in th