nergy of the captain and officers, the fire was
put out.

It was about a week after this thrilling event that Mrs Massey was on
the forecastle talking with Peggy Mitford. A smart breeze was blowing--
just enough to fill all the sails and carry the ship swiftly on her
course, without causing much of a sea. The moon shone fitfully through
a mass of drifting clouds, mingling its pallid light with the wondrous
phosphoric sheen of the tropical seas.

Mrs Mitford had been regaling her companion with a long-winded and
irrelevant, though well-meant, yarn about things in general and nothing
in particular; and Nellie, who was the personification of considerate
patience, had seated herself on the starboard rail to listen to and
comment on her lucubrations.

"Yes, as I was sayin', Nellie," remarked Peggy, in her soft voice, after
a brief pause, during which a variety of weak little expressions crossed
her pretty face, "I never could abide the sea. It always makes me sick,
an' when it doesn't make me sick, it makes me nervish. Not that I'm
given to bein' nervish; an', if I was, it wouldn't matter much, for the
sea would take it out o' me, whether or not. That's always the way--if
it's not one thing, it's sure to be another. Don't you think so,
Nellie? My John says 'e thinks so--though it isn't to be thought much
of what _'e_ says, dear man, for 'e's got a way of sayin' things when 'e
don't mean 'em--you understand?"

"Well, I don't quite understand," answered Mrs Massey, cutting in at
this point with a laugh, "but I'm quite sure it's better to say things
when you don't mean them, than to mean things when you don't say them!"

"Perhaps you're right, Nellie," rejoined Mrs Mitford, with a mild nod
of assent; "I've sometimes thought on these things when I've 'ad one o'
my sick 'eadaches, which prevents me from thinkin' altogether, almost;
an', bless you, you'd wonder what strange idears comes over me at such
times. Did you ever try to think things with a sick 'eadache, Nellie?"

With a laugh, and a bright look, Mrs Massey replied that she had never
been in a position to try that curious experiment, never having had a
headache of any kind in her life.

While she was speaking, a broad-backed wave caused the ship to roll
rather heavily to starboard, and Mrs Massey, losing her balance, fell
into the sea.

Sedate and strong-minded though she was, Nellie could not help shrieking
as she went over; but the shriek given by Mrs M