eeting of the morrow at the ship so
near at hand; and I went so far as to judge that their protracted stay,
with their hostess visibly in a fidget, was a sign of a want of
breeding. Miss Grace after all then was not such an improvement on her
mother, for she easily might have taken the initiative of departure, in
spite of Mrs. Mavis's imbibing her glass of syrup in little interspaced
sips, as if to make it last as long as possible. I watched the girl with
an increasing curiosity; I could not help asking myself a question or
two about her and even perceiving already (in a dim and general way)
that there were some complications in her position. Was it not a
complication that she should have wished to remain long enough to
assuage a certain suspense, to learn whether or no Jasper were going to
sail? Had not something particular passed between them on the occasion
or at the period to which they had covertly alluded, and did she really
not know that her mother was bringing her to _his_ mother's, though she
apparently had thought it well not to mention the circumstance? Such
things were complications on the part of a young lady betrothed to that
curious cross-barred phantom of a Mr. Porterfield. But I am bound to add
that she gave me no further warrant for suspecting them than by the
simple fact of her encouraging her mother, by her immobility, to linger.
Somehow I had a sense that _she_ knew better. I got up myself to go, but
Mrs. Nettlepoint detained me after seeing that my movement would not be
taken as a hint, and I perceived she wished me not to leave my
fellow-visitors on her hands. Jasper complained of the closeness of the
room, said that it was not a night to sit in a room--one ought to be out
in the air, under the sky. He denounced the windows that overlooked the
water for not opening upon a balcony or a terrace, until his mother,
whom he had not yet satisfied about his telegram, reminded him that
there was a beautiful balcony in front, with room for a dozen people.
She assured him we would go and sit there if it would please him.

'It will be nice and cool to-morrow, when we steam into the great
ocean,' said Miss Mavis, expressing with more vivacity than she had yet
thrown into any of her utterances my own thought of half an hour before.
Mrs. Nettlepoint replied that it would probably be freezing cold, and
her son murmured that he would go and try the drawing-room balcony and
report upon it. Just as he was turning aw