ed in the saloon until about
half-past nine, and one of them came to me and said that as they were
very tired they thought they'd go to bed, thinking, most likely, as it
was then so late you wouldn't come aboard until morning. So the steward
showed them their state-rooms, and we had to get one more ready than we
expected to, and they're now all fast asleep; but I suppose I could
arouse some of them up if you want to see them!"

Mrs. Cliff turned to Burke with an expression of despair on her face.
"What in the world shall I do?" said she. "I wanted to tell them all
about it and let them decide, but it would be horrible to make any of
them who didn't care to go to get up and dress and go out into this damp
night air to look for a hotel!"

"Well," said Burke, "all that's going ashore has got to go ashore
to-night. We'll sail as soon as it is daylight! If I was you, Mrs.
Cliff, I wouldn't bother about them. You invited them to go to the
Bahamas, and you're going to take them there, and you're going to send
them back the best way you can, and I'm willing to bet a clipper ship
against your yacht that they will be just as well satisfied to come
back in a regular steamer as to come back in this! You might offer to
send them over to Savannah, and let them come up by rail,--they might
like that for a change! The way the thing looks to me, madam, you're
proposing to give them a good deal more than you promised."

"Well," said Mrs. Cliff, "one thing is certain! I'm not going to turn
any of them out of their warm beds this night; and we might as well go
to our rooms, for it must be a good deal after ten."

When Willy Croup beheld her little state-room, she stood at the door and
looked in at it with rapture. She had a beautiful chamber in Mrs.
Cliff's new house, fully and elegantly furnished, but there was
something about this little bit of a bedroom, with all its nautical
conveniences, its hooks, and shelves, and racks, its dear little window,
and its two pretty berths,--each just big enough and not a bit too
big,--which charmed her as no room she had ever seen had charmed her.

The _Summer Shelter_ must have started, Mrs. Cliff thought, before
daylight the next morning, for when she was awakened by the motion of
the engine it was not light enough to distinguish objects in the room.
But she lay quietly in her berth, and let her proud thoughts mount high
and spread wide. As far as the possession of wealth and the sense of
power