t even a slip of a girl should need
informing on so obvious a fact. "Don't you call it luck to be given
command of a ship like the _Kansas_ at his age? An' to get five
hundred pounds an' a gold chronometer because the skipper of the
_Florida_ was too full to hold on to the bridge? You mark my words.
He'll be made commodore of the fleet after he pulls the _Kansas_ out of
this mess."

"What happened to the _Florida_?"

"Haven't you heard that yarn? Bless my soul, she was our crack ship.
She broke her shaft in a gale, an' the skipper was washed
overboard--you always tell lies about deaders, you know--so A. C. just
waded in an' saved the whole outfit, passengers an' all."

"But he has had reverses, too. He was in the Royal Navy, I have been
told, and he had to give it up because his people--"

"More luck. The Royal Navy! Huh, all gold braid, an' buy your own
vittals. There's no money in that game."

"Money is not everything in the world. A man's career may be more to
him than the mere monetary aspect of it."

"If ever you meet my missus, you 'll hear the other side of the
question, Miss Maxwell. S'posin' Courtenay was in the Navy, an' had a
wife an' family to keep. Could he do it on his pay? Not he. As it
is, he's sure to marry a girl with a pile, and wind up a managing
owner."

"Perhaps he is engaged to some such young lady already?"

"Haven't heard so. You may be sure there's one waitin' for him
somewhere. _I_ know. There's no dodgin' luck, good or bad. I thought
it was goin' to be that friend of yours, but she's off the register,
poor lass. There! I didn't mean that. I 'm an idiot, for sure. You
see, I don't talk much as a rule, Miss Maxwell, or I should know better
than to chin-wag like a blazin'--huh, like a babblin' fool."

Elsie turned her face aside when he mentioned Isobel. It seemed to her
sensitive soul an almost unfair thing that she should be gossiping
about trivialities when the girl who had commenced this unlucky voyage
in such high spirits was lying beneath that grim sea behind the smiling
headland. Yet she knew that Boyle meant no harm by his chatter. He
was weak from his wound, and perhaps a trifle light-headed as the
result of being brought from the stuffy saloon to the airy and sunlit
chart-room. So she crushed a sorrow that was unavailing, and strove to
put the sailor at his ease again.

"I do not find any harm in your remark," she said resolutely. "Were it
possibl