thrilling with a happiness that he did
not know how to express. He felt uneasy, half embarrassed. Her ecstasy
continued....

Then, abruptly, it passed. She became practical. Still upon his knee, she
began to ask questions. When would he sail away? She had heard the
_Nathan Ross_ was almost ready. When would he come back? When would he be
rich, so that they might be married? Would it be long?...

Joel found tongue. "We will be married Monday," he said slowly. "We will
go away--on the _Nathan Ross_--together. I do not want to go alone."

She slipped from his knee, stood before him. "Why, Joel! You're--you're
just crazy to think of it."

He shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I have thought all about it. It is
the best thing to do. We will be married Monday; and we will make a
bigger cabin on the--_Nathan Ross_...." His voice always slowed a little
as he spoke the name of his first ship. "You will be happy on her," he
said. "You will like it all.... The sea...."

She returned to his knee, tumbling his hair. "You silly! Men don't
understand. Why, I couldn't be ready for ever so long. And I wouldn't
dare go away with you. For so awfully long. I just couldn't...." Her eyes
misted with thought, and she said quite seriously: "Why, Joel, we might
find we didn't like each other at all. But we'd be on the ship, with no
way to get away from it ... for three years. Don't you see?"

Joel said calmly: "That is not so; because we know about--liking each
other, already. I know how it is with you. It is clothes that you are
thinking about. Well, you can get them in the stores. And you have many,
already. You have new dresses whenever I see you...."

She laughed gayly. "But, Joel, you only see me once in three years. Of
course I have new dresses, then. But I just couldn't...."

She laughed again, a faint uneasiness in her laughter. She left his knee,
and sat down soberly beside him. She was feeling a little crushed,
smothered ... as though she were being pushed back against a wall. Joel
said steadily:

"Mr. Worthen will be glad to know you go with me. And every one will be
glad for you...."

She burst, abruptly, into tears. She was miserable, she told him. He was
making her miserable. She hated to be bullied, and he was trying to bully
her. She hated him. She wouldn't marry him. Never. He could go off on his
old ship and never come back. That was all. She would not go; and he
ought not to ask her to, anyway. To prove how much