a hundred miles."

"I don't," disagreed Elsie. "I want to see the Gulf Stream. They say
it's a deep indigo blue, and that you can see it plainly. I think a blue
river in a green sea must be lovely--like a blue ribbon trailing down a
light green gown, you know."

"Well, I want to see the real ocean, 'way out--out. I want to see
nothing but water, water everywhere," declared Alma Lane.

"'And not a drop to drink,'" quoted Tilly. "Well, young lady, you may
see the time when you'd give your eyes for a bit of land--and just any
old land would do, too, so long as it _stayed put_!"

"What does it feel like to be seasick?" asked Cordelia, interestedly.

"It feels as if the bottom had dropped out of everything, and you didn't
much care, only you wished you'd gone with it," laughed Tilly.

"Who was it?--wasn't it Mark Twain who said that the first half-hour you
were awfully afraid you would die, and the next you were awfully afraid
you wouldn't?" questioned Elsie.

"I don't know; but whoever said it knew what he was talking about,"
declared Tilly. "You just wait!"

"We're waiting," murmured Genevieve, demurely.

"You young ladies don't want to forget your exercise," said Mr. Hartley
smilingly, coming up at that moment with Mrs. Kennedy. "We've just been
five times around the deck."

"It's eleven laps to the mile," supplemented Mrs. Kennedy with a smile.

"What's a lap?" asked Cordelia.

"Sounds like a kitten on a wager with a saucer of milk," laughed Tilly,
frowning a little as she tried to adjust her sling more comfortably.

"Well, young ladies, we'll show you just what a lap is, if you'll come
with us," promised Mr. Hartley; and with alacrity the girls expressed
themselves as being quite ready to be shown.

On and on, mile after mile, down the great river swept the great ship
until Forts Jackson and St. Philip were reached and left behind; then on
and on for other miles to the narrow South Pass where on either side the
Eads Jetties called forth exclamations of wonder.

"Well, you'd better 'ah' and 'um,'" laughed Genevieve. "They happen to
be one of the greatest engineering feats in the world; that's all."

"How do you know that?" demanded Bertha.

"Don't worry her," cut in Tilly, with mock sympathy. "Poor thing! it's
only a case of another guidebook, of course."

"Well, all is, just keep your weather eye open," laughed Genevieve, "for
when we make the South Pass Lightship, then ho! for the--"

"Broad Atlan