y face.

"Why Miss Mavis. We've talked enough about that."

"Quite enough. I don't know what that has had to do with it. Miss
Mavis, so far as I've noticed, hasn't been above today."

"Oh it goes on all the same."

"It goes on?"

"Well, it's too late."

"Too late?"

"Well, you'll see. There'll be a row."

This wasn't comforting, but I didn't repeat it on deck. Mrs. Nettlepoint
returned early to her cabin, professing herself infinitely spent. I
didn't know what "went on," but Grace Mavis continued not to show. I
looked in late, for a good-night to my friend, and learned from her that
the girl hadn't been to her. She had sent the stewardess to her room for
news, to see if she were ill and needed assistance, and the stewardess
had come back with mere mention of her not being there. I went above
after this; the night was not quite so fair and the deck almost empty. In
a moment Jasper Nettlepoint and our young lady moved past me together. "I
hope you're better!" I called after her; and she tossed me over her
shoulder--"Oh yes, I had a headache; but the air now does me good!"

I went down again--I was the only person there but they, and I wanted not
to seem to dog their steps--and, returning to Mrs. Nettlepoint's room,
found (her door was open to the little passage) that she was still
sitting up.

"She's all right!" I said. "She's on the deck with Jasper."

The good lady looked up at me from her book. "I didn't know you called
that all right."

"Well, it's better than something else."

"Than what else?"

"Something I was a little afraid of." Mrs. Nettlepoint continued to look
at me; she asked again what that might be. "I'll tell you when we're
ashore," I said.

The next day I waited on her at the usual hour of my morning visit, and
found her not a little distraught. "The scenes have begun," she said;
"you know I told you I shouldn't get through without them! You made me
nervous last night--I haven't the least idea what you meant; but you made
me horribly nervous. She came in to see me an hour ago, and I had the
courage to say to her: 'I don't know why I shouldn't tell you frankly
that I've been scolding my son about you.' Of course she asked what I
meant by that, and I let her know. 'It seems to me he drags you about
the ship too much for a girl in your position. He has the air of not
remembering that you belong to some one else. There's a want of taste
and even a want of respect in