ful of egg
under the stimulus of the wish, forgetting that he had not meant to take
up that spoon again.

"Mrs. Burnside and Jo looked their own dear selves--every line of them.
It struck me afresh, as it always does when I see them after an interval,
how beautifully yet quietly dressed they are, and how their photographs
might be taken at any minute with delightful results. 'Portrait of a Lady
and her Daughter' it would be." And Sally sighed a little sigh of a quite
feminine sort, looking down at her own blue travelling attire and
wondering how the same material would have looked if made up by Mrs.
Burnside's tailor.

"And Jarvis--how is he? I am very fond of Jarvis. I suppose he has lost
some of the summer's tan?"

"If he has it's been put back again by the frosty winds, for he's the
image of health. Mr. Ferry and Janet are very much themselves, too. And
they all sent you something." Sally reached under the berth and drew out
a big florists' box, signalled the waiter to remove the remains of the
breakfast, and then spread forth the cards which accompanied the great
bunch of crimson roses, enjoying Mr. Rudd's almost boyish pleasure in the
remembrance of his friends.

"These must be for you too, Sally," said he, burying his nose in one fine
half-open bud.

"Not a bit of it."

"No flowers for you, child?"

"Fruit and chocolates and writing-tablets and other delightful things.
You must have some of the grapes, Uncle Timmy--I ought to have thought of
them for your breakfast."

"These roses are as good as a square meal--but they should have been for
you, not for an old fossil like me."

"Don't you dare call yourself an old fossil, Uncle Timmy. Now look at all
these pretty gifts," and Sally brought them forth, exhibiting them well
concealed from the other passengers. Uncle Timothy looked and exclaimed
and admired, and did not note that one person seemed to be unrepresented
by any remembrance. Neither did he guess that tucked far away under
Sally's berth was a box containing a mass of sweet peas which had that
morning been carefully sprinkled, but which were destined never to be
seen again by mortal eye except her own.

CHAPTER XVIII

FROM APRIL NORTH

During a winter which seemed, in spite of all the beauties of the far
South, the longest she had ever known, Sally was kept well in touch with
affairs at home by the letters. If it had not been for these she thought
she could hardly have waited for the