pert little monkey, or that she knew nothing beyond house-keeping and
crochet, and similar compliments. Now, however, in a certain animated
conversation between Lawrence and Emma, the designing seaman thought he
saw the budding of his deep-laid plans, and fondly hoped ere long to
behold the bud developed into the flower of matrimony. Under this
conviction he secretly hugged himself, but in the salon, that evening,
he opened his arms and released himself on beholding the apparently
fickle Lawrence deeply engaged in converse with the Count Horetzki, to
whose pretty daughter, however, he addressed the most of his remarks.

The Captain, being a blunt honest, straightforward man, could not
understand this state of matters, and fell into a fit of abstracted
perplexity on the sofa beside Mrs Stoutley, who listened listlessly to
the Russian Professor as he attempted to explain to her and Emma the
nature of a glacier.

"Well, I don't understand it at all," said Mrs Stoutley, at the end of
one of the Professor's most lucid expositions.

We may remark, in passing, that the Professor, like many of his
countrymen, was a good linguist and spoke English well.

"Not understand it!" he exclaimed, with a slight elevation of his
eyebrows. "My dear madam, it is most plain, but I fear my want of good
English does render me not quite intelligible."

"Your English is excellent," replied Mrs Stoutley, with a smile, "but I
fear that my brain is not a sufficiently clear one on such matters, for
I confess that I cannot understand it. Can you, Captain Wopper?"

"Certainly not, ma'am," answered the Captain, thinking of the fickle
Lawrence; "it takes the wind out of my sails entirely."

"Indeed!" said the Professor. "Well, do permit me to try again. You
understand that all the mountain-tops and elevated plateaus, for many
miles around here, are covered with ice and snow."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Captain, awaking to the fact that his answer was not
relevant; "may I ax what is the particular pint that puzzles you,
ma'am?"

Emma laughed aloud at this, and coughed a little to conceal the fact.
She was rather easily taken by surprise with passing touches of the
ludicrous, and had not yet acquired the habit of effectually suppressing
little explosions of undertoned mirth.

"The thing that puzzles me," said Mrs Stoutley, "is, that glaciers
should _flow_, as I am told they do, and yet that they should be as hard
and brittle as glass."

"Ah