tle more than a year afterward. "And I," he used to think, "was
born with an old head on my shoulders; so we have grown up together. I
suppose the dear soul never had a thought in her life which she has not
told me."

As they sat together a steward brought Mrs. Waldeaux a note, which she
read, blushing and smiling.

"The captain invites us to sit at his table," she said, when the man
was gone.

"Very proper in the captain," said George complacently. "You see,
Madam Waldeaux, even the men who go down in ships have heard of you and
your family!"

"I don't believe the captain ever heard of me," she said, after a grave
consideration, "nor of the Waldeaux. It is much more likely that he
has read your article in the Quarterly, George."

"Nonsense!" But he stiffened himself up consciously.

He had sent a paper on some abstruse point of sociology to the
Quarterly last spring, and it had aroused quite a little buzz of
criticism. His mother had regarded it very much as the Duchess of Kent
did the crown when it was set upon her little girl's head. She always
had known that her child was born to reign, but it was satisfactory to
see this visible sign of it.

She whispered now, eagerly leaning over to him. "There was something
about that paper which I never told you. I think I'll tell you now
that the great day has come."

"Well?"

"Why, you know--I never think of you as my son, or a man, or anything
outside of me--not at all. You are just ME, doing the things I should
have done if I had not been a woman. Well,"--she drew her breath
quickly,--"when I was a girl it seemed as if there was something in me
that I must say, so I tried to write poems. No, I never told you
before. It had counted for so much to me I could not talk of it. I
always sent them to the paper anonymously, signed 'Sidney.' Oh, it was
long--long ago! I've been dumb, as you might say, for years. But when
I read your article, George--do you know if I had written it I should
have used just the phrases you did? And you signed it 'Sidney'!" She
watched him breathlessly. "That was more than a coincidence, don't you
think? I AM dumb, but you speak for me now. It is because we are just
one. Don't you think so, George?" She held his arm tightly.

Young Waldeaux burst into a loud laugh. Then he took her hand in his,
stroking it. "You dear little woman! What do you know of sociology?"
he said, and then walked away to hide his amusement, mu