we sailed from by the end of the week."

"Whenever you like, Richard," answered the old gentleman, resignedly.
"Any time will do for me."

"Any time within reasonable limits, Joseph," said Miss Lavinia,
evidently feeling that her brother was conceding too much. She spoke
with Sir Joseph's amiable smile and Sir Joseph's softly-pitched voice.
Two twin babies could hardly have been more like one another.

While these few words were being exchanged among the elders, a private
communication was in course of progress between the two young people
under the cabin table. Natalie's smartly-slippered foot felt its way
cautiously inch by inch over the carpet till it touched Launce's boot.
Launce, devouring his breakfast, instantly looked up from his plate,
and then, at a second touch from Natalie, looked down again in a violent
hurry. After pausing to make sure that she was not noticed, Natalie
took up her knife. Under a perfectly-acted pretense of toying with it
absently, in the character of a young lady absorbed in thought, she
began dividing a morsel of ham left on the edge of her plate, into six
tiny pieces. Launce's eye looked in sidelong expectation at the divided
and subdivided ham. He was evidently waiting to see the collection of
morsels put to some telegraphic use, previously determined on between
his neighbor and himself.

In the meanwhile the talk proceeded among the other persons at the
breakfast-table. Miss Lavinia addressed herself to Launce.

"Do you know, you careless boy, you gave me a fright this morning? I was
sleeping with my cabin window open, and I was awoke by an awful splash
in the water. I called for the stewardess. I declare I thought somebody
had fallen overboard!"

Sir Joseph looked up briskly; his sister had accidentally touched on an
old association.

"Talk of falling overboard," he began, "reminds me of an extraordinary
adventure--"

There Launce broke in, making his apologies.

"It shan't occur again, Miss Lavinia," he said. "To-morrow morning I'll
oil myself all over, and slip into the water as silently as a seal."

"Of an extraordinary adventure," persisted Sir Joseph, "which happened
to me many years ago, when I was a young man. Lavinia?"

He stopped, and looked interrogatively at his sister. Miss Graybrooke
nodded her head responsively, and settled herself in her chair, as if
summoning her attention in anticipation of a coming demand on it. To
persons well acquainted with the brothe