answered, "and sometimes I feel thirty-nine."

"Nineteen!" he repeated, "and coming across to a strange country all by
yourself. The American spirit is a wonderful thing."

She shook her head.

"It isn't the American spirit," she said simply. "It is necessity. I
think that any girl, English or American, would prefer having some one
to take care of her, to going about alone."

"You make one feel inclined--" he began, bending forward and looking
into her eyes.

"After all," she interrupted, "I think I had better read."

"Please don't!" he begged, "I promise to talk most seriously. It is not
my fault if I forgot for a moment. You looked at me, you know, and we
are not used to eyes like that in England."

"You are either very silly," she said, "or very impertinent. I think
that I shall send you away."

"There is no one else," he said, looking around, "to entertain you, and
I am really going to try very hard to."

"Then please reach me up those chocolates and begin," she said. "Tell me
about where you live in the country."

Mildmay, who had seven houses in different parts of the United Kingdom,
was a little at a loss, but he talked to her about one, in which, by the
by, he never lived, a gaunt grey stone building on the Northumbrian
coast, whose windows were splashed with the spray of the North Sea, but
whose gardens were famous throughout the north of England. He very soon
succeeded in interesting her. She felt something absurdly restful in the
sound of his strong, good-natured voice, with its slightly protective
intonation. They sat there until the luncheon gong rang, and then they
rose and walked for a time together. The sun had come out, and the grey
sea was changing into blue. The decks were dry. The syren had ceased to
blow. The motion of the ship had become soothing, and the spray, which
leaped now into the air, sparkled in the sunlight like diamond drops.

"What a change!" she murmured, looking around.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" he assented. "And what a gloriously salt breeze!"

"I declare," she said, "I am positively hungry! I believe, after all,
that I am going to enjoy this voyage."

After luncheon she hesitated for a moment, and then with a little sigh
turned into her stateroom. She sat down upon her bunk, and leaning her
elbow on the round space, gazed thoughtfully out of the open port-hole.
Had she been foolish to forget for a little while, and was she in danger
of being more foolish still! Her th