ences were not made immediately or all at once, but
gradually, as the two girls became acquainted, and mutual suffering
endeared them to each other. For, in spite of Imogen's Devonshire
bringing up, the English Channel proved too much for her, and she had to
endure two pretty bad days before, promoted from gruel to dry toast, and
from dry toast to beef-tea, she was able to be helped on deck, and
seated, well wrapped up, in a reclining chair to inhale the cold, salty
wind which was the best and only medicine for her particular kind of
ailment.

The chair next hers was occupied by a pretty, dark-eyed, and very
lady-like woman, with whom Lionel had apparently made an acquaintance;
for he said, as he tucked Imogen's rugs about her, "Here's my sister at
last, you see;" which off-hand introduction the lady acknowledged with a
pleasant smile, saying she was glad to see Miss Young able to be up.
Her manner was so unaffected and cordial that Imogen's stiffness melted
under its influence, and before she knew it they were talking quite like
old acquaintances.

Imogen was struck by the sweet voice of the stranger, with its well-bred
modulations, and also by the good taste and perfection of all her little
appointments, from the down pillow at top of her chair to the
fur-trimmed shoes on a pair of particularly pretty feet at the other
end. She set her down in her own mind as a London dame of
fashion,--perhaps a countess, or a Lady Something-or-other, who was
going out to see America.

"Your brother tells me this is your first voyage," said the lady.

"Yes. He has been out before, but none of us were with him. It's all
perfectly strange to me"--with a sigh.

"Why do you sigh? Don't you expect to like it?"

"Why no, not _like it_ exactly. Of course I'm glad to be with Lionel and
of use to him, but I didn't come away from home for pleasure."

"Pleasure must come to you, then," said the lady, with a smile. "And
really I don't see why it shouldn't. In the first place you are acting
the part of a good sister; and you know the adage about duty performed
making rainbows in the soul. And then Colorado is a beautiful State,
with the finest of mountain views, a wonderful climate, and such wild
flowers as grow nowhere else. I have some friends living there who are
quite infatuated about it. They say there is no place so delightful in
the world."

"That is just the way with my brother. It's really absurd the way he
talks about it. You w