the result; but that is a very different thing
from wishing to have one."

By the time they were a fortnight out from Buenos Ayres, Mr. Atherton
and James Allen were both off the sick-list; indeed the latter had been
but a week in the doctor's hands. The adventure had bound the little
party more closely together than before. The Allens had quite settled
that when their friends once established themselves on a holding, they
would, if possible, take one up in the neighbourhood; and they and the
young Renshaws often regretted that Mr. Atherton was only a bird of
passage, and had no intention of fixing himself permanently in the
colony. The air had grown very much colder of late, and the light
clothes they had worn in the tropics had already been discarded, and in
the evening all were glad to put on warm wraps when they came on deck.

"I think," the captain said as Mr. Renshaw came up for his customary
walk before breakfast, "we are going to have a change. The glass has
fallen a good deal, and I did not like the look of the sun when it rose
this morning."

"It looks to me very much as usual," Mr. Renshaw replied, shading his
eyes and looking at the sun, "except perhaps that it is not quite so
bright."

"Not so bright by a good deal," the captain said. "There is a change in
the colour of the sky--it is not so blue. The wind has fallen too, and I
fancy by twelve o'clock there will be a calm. Of course we cannot be
surprised if we do have a change. We have had a splendid spell of
weather, and we are getting into stormy latitudes now."

When the passengers went up after breakfast they found that the _Flying
Scud_ was scarcely moving through the water. The sails hung idly against
the masts, and the yards creaked as the vessel rose and fell slightly on
an almost invisible swell.

"This would be a good opportunity," the captain said cheerfully, "to get
down our light spars; the snugger we are the better for rounding the
Horn. Mr. Ryan, send all hands aloft, and send down all spars over the
topmast."

The crew swarmed up the rigging, and in two hours the _Flying Scud_ was
stripped of the upper yards and lofty spars.

"She looks very ugly," Marion Renshaw said. "Do you not think so, Mary?"

"Hideous," Mary Mitford agreed.

"She is in fighting trim now," Mr. Atherton said.

"Yes, but who are we going to fight?" Marion asked.

"We are going to have a skirmish with the weather, I fancy, Miss
Renshaw. I don't say we are g