ould probably not
have entered my head without her suggestion, but an uneasy feeling came
over me, born probably of reading something in the paper about infant
mortality. I took a blessed refuge in prevarication.

"He is looking splendidly," I told her. "But they take sick babies and
give them long jaunts out on the bay, with nurses and doctors. If that
sort of thing can cure an ailing infant, it must make a healthy one feel
like a fighting-cock. Get ready, and we'll take the boat to Coney Island
and spend a couple of hours at sea. It will put better color in the
little man's cheeks and do no harm to your own. I'm craving for the
trip, come along and hurry up!"

She began the usual objections, to which I refused any attentions. I
suspect I have a little of the bully in my nature. At any rate we
sallied forth, soon afterwards, and went to the Battery, where we
percolated through the crowd into a couple of folding seats on the upper
deck.

"Oh! It is such a blessed relief," she said, after the boat had started
and made a breeze for us, since, on the water, none but the tiniest
flaws rippled the surface. I called her attention to the remarkable
sight of Manhattan fading away behind us in a haze that softened the
lines, till they appeared to be washed in with palest lavenders and
pinks.

"The insolence of wealth and the garishness of its marts are
disappearing," I told her. "Our moist summer air, so worthless to
breathe and cruel to ailing babes, is gilding a pill otherwise often
hard to swallow. All about us are people, most of whom live away from
the splendors we behold. Some of them, like ourselves, burrow in
semi-forgotten streets and some dwell on the boundary where humanity
rather festers than thrives. They are giving themselves up to the
enjoyment of a coolness which, an hour ago, appeared like an
unrealizable dream. Let us do likewise."

Frances smiled at me, indulgently. Like all really good women, she has
an inexhaustible patience with the vagaries and empty remarks of a mere
man. Women are more concerned with the practicalities of life. About us
the fairer sex was apparently in the majority and the discussions
carried on around us concerned garments, the price of victuals and the
evil ways of certain husbands. Young ladies, provided with male escorts,
sprinkled poetry, or at least doggerel, over the conversation of more
staid matrons. Their remarks and exclamations seldom soared to lofty
heights, but in th