"Why, if you want to go, Ellen--"

"Oh, I wasn't asking for that; I am going back to Lottie. But I should
think you would like the air. Won't it do you good?"

"I'm all right," said the judge, cheered by her show of concern for some
one else. "I suppose it's rather wet on deck?" he referred himself to
Breckon.

"Well, not very, if you keep to the leeward. She doesn't seem a very wet
boat."

"What is a wet boat" Ellen asked, without lifting her sad eyes.

"Well, really, I'm afraid it's largely a superstition. Passengers like
to believe that some boats are less liable to ship seas--to run into
waves--than others; but I fancy that's to give themselves the air of old
travellers."

She let the matter lapse so entirely that he supposed she had forgotten
it in all its bearings, when she asked, "Have you been across many
times?"

"Not many-four or five."

"This is our first time," she volunteered.

"I hope it won't be your last. I know you will enjoy it." She fell
listless again, and Breckon imagined he had made a break. "Not," he
added, with an endeavor for lightness, "that I suppose you're going for
pleasure altogether. Women, nowadays, are above that, I understand. They
go abroad for art's sake, and to study political economy, and history,
and literature--"

"My daughter," the judge interposed, "will not do much in that way, I
hope."

The girl bent her head over her plate and frowned.

"Oh, then," said Breckon, "I will believe that she's going for purely
selfish enjoyment. I should like to be justified in making that my
object by a good example."

Ellen looked up and gave him a look that cut him short in his glad note.
The lifting of her eyelids was like the rise of the curtain upon some
scene of tragedy which was all the more impressive because it seemed
somehow mixed with shame. This poor girl, whom he had pitied as an
invalid, was a sufferer from some spiritual blight more pathetic than
broken health. He pulled his mind away from the conjecture that tempted
it and went on: "One of the advantages of going over the fourth or fifth
time is that you're relieved from a discoverer's duties to Europe. I've
got absolutely nothing before me now, but at first I had to examine
every object of interest on the Continent, and form an opinion about
thousands of objects that had no interest for me. I hope Miss Kenton
will take warning from me."

He had not addressed Ellen directly, and her father answered: "We have