ping our iced liquid and
telling how "low" Mr. Mavis had been. At this period the girl's silence
struck me as still more conscious, partly perhaps because she deprecated
her mother's free flow--she was enough of an "improvement" to measure
that--and partly because she was too distressed by the idea of leaving
her infirm, her perhaps dying father. It wasn't indistinguishable that
they were poor and that she would take out a very small purse for her
trousseau. For Mr. Porterfield to make up the sum his own case would
have had moreover greatly to change. If he had enriched himself by the
successful practice of his profession I had encountered no edifice he had
reared--his reputation hadn't come to my ears.

Mrs. Nettlepoint notified her new friends that she was a very inactive
person at sea: she was prepared to suffer to the full with Miss Mavis,
but not prepared to pace the deck with her, to struggle with her, to
accompany her to meals. To this the girl replied that she would trouble
her little, she was sure: she was convinced she should prove a wretched
sailor and spend the voyage on her back. Her mother scoffed at this
picture, prophesying perfect weather and a lovely time, and I interposed
to the effect that if I might be trusted, as a tame bachelor fairly sea-
seasoned, I should be delighted to give the new member of our party an
arm or any other countenance whenever she should require it. Both the
ladies thanked me for this--taking my professions with no sort of
abatement--and the elder one declared that we were evidently going to be
such a sociable group that it was too bad to have to stay at home. She
asked Mrs. Nettlepoint if there were any one else in our party, and when
our hostess mentioned her son--there was a chance of his embarking but
(wasn't it absurd?) he hadn't decided yet--she returned with
extraordinary candour: "Oh dear, I do hope he'll go: that would be so
lovely for Grace."

Somehow the words made me think of poor Mr. Porterfield's tartan,
especially as Jasper Nettlepoint strolled in again at that moment. His
mother at once challenged him: it was ten o'clock; had he by chance made
up his great mind? Apparently he failed to hear her, being in the first
place surprised at the strange ladies and then struck with the fact that
one of them wasn't strange. The young man, after a slight hesitation,
greeted Miss Mavis with a handshake and a "Oh good-evening, how do you
do?" He didn't utter her