e rebuked. "It was most
unkind of you. How would you like to be aggravated if you were
seasick?"

"If I got theathick I'd detherve to be teathed. Oh, thee the gullth."

A flock of white gulls was circling over the "Sister Sue." Harriet
flung overboard a handful of crumbs, whereat the birds swooped down,
rode the swells and greedily picked up the crumbs. They started up and
soon overtook the sloop. For an hour the girls fed them; then, the
crumbs being exhausted, the gulls soared out to sea in search of other
craft and food.

For some time the sailing party had been so fully engaged with their
own affairs that they had given little thought to their surroundings.
They now began to look about them.

"The land has disappeared!" cried Harriet. "We are out of sight of
land. Isn't this splendid? How far are we out from home, Captain?"

"Nearly forty miles," he answered, after consulting the log. "Want to
go back?"

"Oh, no! Let's keep on going. How I wish we could keep on forever in
this way."

"We will go on until we meet a ship that is due here."

"A ship! Oh, where?" cried the girls.

The captain pointed a gnarled finger at a faint smudge on the distant
horizon.

"Yonder she is," he answered. "Shall we go out and meet her?"

"Yes, oh, yes!" shouted the Meadow-Brook Girls gleefully. He changed
the course of the "Sister Sue" ever so little, and they went bowling
along over the Atlantic rollers headed for the big liner that was
approaching them at nearly thirty miles an hour.

CHAPTER XXI

AN ANXIOUS OUTLOOK

"Come out, girlth, and thee the thhip," shouted Tommy, poking her head
into the cabin.

"Go away and don't bother me," groaned Margery. "Can't you see how
sick I am?"

"Ithn't that too bad?" deplored Tommy, withdrawing her face with a
most unsympathetic grin. All those on deck were watching the black
smudge on the horizon, and as they gazed it grew into a great, dark
cloud. Out of the cloud, after a time, they saw white foam flashing
in the sunlight, caused by the displacement of the great ship as she
forged through the summer seas.

"Shall we pass near her?" questioned Miss Elting.

"We're right on her course," replied the skipper. "We'll turn out
soon, for she won't shift her position an inch unless she thinks we're
going to run into her. Let your boat off a point to starboard, Miss
Burrell."

"Aye, aye," answered Harriet promptly, shifting the wheel slightly,
eyes fixed on the trembl