Outside, Mr. Trevor, his face wearing an immutable expression of
defiance for the wickedness surrounding him, had placed his daughter for
safe-keeping between himself and the only other reliable character on
board,--the refrigerator. But Miss Thorn appeared in a blue mackintosh
and a pair of heavy yachting-boots, courting rather than avoiding a
drenching. Even a mackintosh is becoming to some women. All morning she
sat behind Mr. Cooke, on the rise of the cabin, her back against the
mast and her hair flying in the wind, and I, for one, was not sorry the
Celebrity had given us this excuse for a sail.

CHAPTER XVI

About half-past eleven Mr. Cooke's vigilance was rewarded by a glimpse
of the lighthouse on Far Harbor reef, and almost simultaneously he
picked up, to the westward, the ragged outline of the house-tops and
spires of the town itself. But as we neared the reef the harbor appeared
as quiet as a Sunday morning: a few Mackinaws were sailing hither
and thither, and the Far Harbor and Beaverton boat was coming out. My
client, in view of the peaceful aspect affairs had assumed, presently
consented to relinquish his post, and handed the glasses over to me with
an injunction to be watchful.

I promised. And Mr. Cooke, feeling his way aft with more discretion than
grace, finally descended into the cabin, where he was noisily received.
And I was left with Miss Thorn. While my client had been there in front
of us, his lively conversation and naive if profane remarks kept us in
continual laughter. When with him it was utterly impossible to see
any other than the ludicrous side of this madcap adventure, albeit he
himself was so keenly in earnest as to its performance. It was with
misgiving that I saw him disappear into the hatchway, and my impulse
was to follow him. Our spirits, like those in a thermometer, are never
stationary: mine were continually being sent up or down. The night
before, when I had sat with Miss Thorn beside the fire, they went up;
this morning her anxious solicitude for the Celebrity had sent them
down again. She both puzzled and vexed me. I could not desert my post as
lookout, and I remained in somewhat awkward suspense as to what she was
going to say, gazing at distant objects through the glasses. Her remark,
when it came, took me by surprise.

"I am afraid," she said seriously, "that Uncle Fenelon's principles are
not all that they should be. His morality is something like his tobacco,
which