. D'ye see? Thick lips, coarse curls, flat
nostrils----"

Perry laughed. "The eyes, anyhow, are quite human," he said. "They
challenge the whole world of men. I can't place her!" staring after
her, perplexed. "I really don't believe I ever saw her before. Yet
her face brings up some old story of a tragedy or crime to me."

"Nonsense! The girl is not twenty. Very fetching with all her
vulgarity, though. Steward, send some coffee to my stateroom. Let's
go down, Jem. The fog is too chilly."

Frances Waldeaux did not find the fog chilly. She had been thinking
for thirty years of the day when she should start to Europe--ever since
she could think at all.

This was the day. It was like no other, now that it had come. The
fog, the crowd, the greasy smells of the pier, all familiar enough
yesterday, took on a certain remoteness and mystery. It seemed to her
that she was doing something which nobody had ever done before. She
was going to discover the Old World.

The New was not more tremendous or unreal before the eyes of Columbus
when he, too, stood on the poop of his ship.

Her son was arguing with the deck steward about chairs.

"Now, mother," he said at last, "it's all right. They are under cover
so that the glare will not strain your eyes, and we can keep dry while
we watch the storms."

"How did you know about it all? One would think you had crossed a
dozen times, George."

"Oh, I've studied the whole thing up thoroughly," George said, with a
satisfied little nod. "I've had time enough! Why, when I was in
petticoats you used to tell me you would buy a ship and we would sail
away together. You used to spoil all my school maps with red lines,
drawing our routes."

"Yes. And now we're going!" said Frances to herself.

He sat down beside her and they watched the unending procession of
passengers marching around the deck. George called her attention by a
wink to any picturesque or queer figure that passed. He liked to watch
her quiet brown eyes gleam with fun. Nobody had such a keen sense of
the ridiculous as his mother. Sometimes, at the mere remembrance of
some absurd idea, she would go off into soft silent paroxysms of
laughter until the tears would stream down her cheeks.

George was fond and proud of his childish little mother. He had never
known any body, he thought, so young or so transparent. It was easily
understood. She had married at sixteen, and had been left a widow
lit