the night, and when I awoke, Mr. Tooth was
shaving himself, and the cabin was brilliant with sunshine whitened to
a finer glory yet by the broad surface of milk-white froth that was
rushing past the ship. There was plainly a noble sailing breeze
blowing, and the vessel was lying well down to it, with a sort of
humming and tingling throughout the whole body of her. I made haste to
shave, fencing with Mr. Tooth's questions, as he plied them out of a
mouth that yawned darkly amid the soapsuds with which he had covered
his cheeks, and then hastened into the saloon to look for Grace and
take her on deck. The good-humoured little stewardess, however, told
me she was not yet up, though it wanted but twenty minutes to eight, on
which I shot through the companion into the windy splendour of the
grandest ocean morning that ever set a man fresh from his bed blinking.

The ship was heeling to it as a yacht might; her yards were braced
forward, and the snow at her forefoot soared and blew away in smoke to
the sliding irresistible thrust of her sharp metal stem. The sea for
leagues and leagues rolled blue, foaming, brilliant; wool-like clouds,
lovely with prismatic glitterings in their skirts, as they sailed from
the sun, were speeding into the south-east. The whole life of the
world seemed to be in that morning--in the joyous sweep of the blue
wind, in the frolicsome frothing of each long blue ridge of rolling
sea, in the triumphant speeding of the ship sliding buoyant from one
soft foam-freckled hollow to another.

I drew a deep breath. Ha! thought I, if it were always like this now,
and New Zealand not so distant.

But as I thus thought I sent my eyes to leeward, and the first thing I
saw was a large steamer heading in an opposite direction, and
undoubtedly going home. Our combined speed was making her look like to
be passing at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour. I started, and
stepped up to Mr. M'Cosh, who stood alone at the head of the poop
ladder.

"Isn't that vessel going home?" I cried.

He viewed her deliberately as though looking at her for the first time,
then said, with his Scotch accent, which I will not attempt to repeat:

"I don't doubt it, sir."

"Then why not signal, Mr. M'Cosh? I may have to wait a long time for
another opportunity."

"I thought, sir," said he, looking at me with a peculiar expression in
his eyes, "that you were to be married this morning?"

"Oh! well," I exclaimed, seeing