r. Opp paused irresolute: his soul yearned for
solitude, but the rain-soaked dock offered no shelter except the slight
protection afforded by a pile of empty boxes. Selecting the driest and
largest of these, he turned it on end, and by an adroit adjustment of
his legs, succeeded in getting inside.

Below, the river rolled heavily past in the twilight, sending up tiny
juts of water to meet the pelting rain. A cold, penetrating mist clung
to the ground, and the wind carried complaining tales from earth to
heaven. Everything breathed discomfort, but Mr. Opp knew it not.

His soul was sailing sunlit seas of bliss, fully embarked at last upon
the most magic and immortal of all illusions. Sitting cramped and numb
in his narrow quarters, he peered eagerly into the darkness, watching
for the first lights of the _Sunny South_ to twinkle through the gloom.
And as he watched he chanted in a sing-song ecstasy:

"She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red."

X

When Miss Guinevere Gusty tripped up the gang-plank of the _Sunny South_
late that afternoon, vainly trying to protect herself from the driving
rain, she was met half-way by the gallant old captain.

Tradition had it that the captain had once cast a favorable eye upon her
mother; but Mrs. Gusty, being cross-eyed, had looked elsewhere.

"We are a pudding without plums," he announced gaily, as he held the
umbrella at an angle calculated to cause a waterspout in the crown of
her hat--"not a lady on board. All we needed was a beautiful young
person like you to liven us up. You haven't forgotten those pretty tunes
you played for me last trip, have you?"

Guinevere laughed, and shook her head. "That was just for you and the
girls," she said.

"Well, it'll be for me and the boys this time. I've got a nice lot of
gentlemen on board, going down to your place, by the way, to buy up all
your oil-lands. Now I know you are going to play for us if I ask you
to."

"My goodness! are they on this boat?" asked Guinevere, in a flutter. "I
am so glad; I just love to watch city people."

"Yes," said the captain; "that was Mr. Mathews talking to me as you came
aboard--the one with the white beard. Everything that man t