comfort was concerned, having been raised up in the Injies."

"Come, Miss Lamarque," I interrupted. "I must not hear another word.
'Macbeth doth murder sleep,' and I shall be nervous for a month after
this. So, good-night, Mr. Garth, and be sure you merit your first name
by taking good care of us while we imitate the example of your worthy
captain and 'swing ourselves to sleep,' or rather let the waves perform
that office for us. I shall make it my care to-morrow morning early, if
you still hold the helm, to show you my sketch, and convince you that it
was never made for fun at all, but that it is a real portrait of a very
fine-looking seaman, a real viking in appearance, and somewhat better
than one at heart, I trust. I shall hope to earn your good opinion
instead of ill-will, when you have only seen my sketch."

"You have it already, you have it already, young gal--young miss, I
mean," he said, with a wave of the hand, which meant to be courteous, no
doubt, but seemed only defiant. "An' this much I kin say without injury
to Sall--that I'd rather hear you talk and see you smile, as I has been
watchin' of you constant do to-day, than go to the circus in New York,
or even to a Spanish bull-fight, or hear a Fourth-of-July oration, or
'tend camp-meetin'--and that's saying no little--an' no iceberg shall
come near you while Christian Garth lays a hand upon this helm. But
don't be skeered, ladies; no harm will come to the good ship Kosciusko."

"I declare our pilot is quite chivalrous, as far as you are concerned,
for I marked his glance, Miss Harz," said Miss Lamarque, archly, as we
turned our faces cabinward, under the protection of our helmsman's
promised vigilance. "See what it is to be young and pretty, and remark
the truth of the old proverb, as exemplified in his case, that 'extremes
meet.' Victoria herself is not more independent of me or my
position--established facts as both are in the eyes of some--than is
Christian Garth. To him, this outsider of the world of fashion, I am
only a homely old woman; no prestige comes in to garnish the unvarnished
fact--a plain old maid, my dear--with not even the remembrance of beauty
as a consolation, nor its remnant as a sign of past triumphs, 'only this
and nothing more,' as that wonderful man Poe makes his raven say. We
never find our level until we go among people who know and care nothing
about us, who have never 'heard of us'--that exordium of most greetings
from folks of