e put down by them."

In the music-room sat the people she meant, and at the instant she
passed on down the stairs, the daughter was saying to the father, "I
don't see why you didn't tell me sooner, papa."

"It was such an unimportant matter that I didn't think to mention it. He
offered it, and I took it; that was all. What difference could it have
made to you?"

"None. But one doesn't like to do any one an injustice."

"I didn't know you were thinking anything about it."

"No, of course not."

XIII.

The voyage of the Norumbia was one of those which passengers say they
have never seen anything like, though for the first two or three days
out neither the doctor nor the deck-steward could be got, to prophesy
when the ship would be in. There was only a day or two when it could
really be called rough, and the sea-sickness was confined to those who
seemed wilful sufferers; they lay on the cushioned benching around the
stairs-landing, and subsisted on biscuit and beef tea without qualifying
the monotonous well-being of the other passengers, who passed without
noticing them.

The second morning there was rain, and the air freshened, but the leaden
sea lay level as before. The sun shone in the afternoon; with the sunset
the fog came thick and white; the ship lowed dismally through the night;
from the dense folds of the mist answering noises called back to her.
Just before dark two men in a dory shouted up to her close under her
bows, and then melted out of sight; when the dark fell the lights of
fishing-schooners were seen, and their bells pealed; once loud cries
from a vessel near at hand made themselves heard. Some people in the
dining-saloon sang hymns; the smoking-room was dense with cigar fumes,
and the card-players dealt their hands in an atmosphere emulous of the
fog without.

The Norumbia was off the Banks, and the second day of fog was cold as
if icebergs were haunting the opaque pallor around her. In the ranks of
steamer chairs people lay like mummies in their dense wrappings; in the
music-room the little children of travel discussed the different lines
of steamers on which they had crossed, and babes of five and seven
disputed about the motion on the Cunarders and White Stars; their nurses
tried in vain to still them in behalf of older passengers trying to
write letters there.

By the next morning the ship had run out of the fog; and people who
could keep their feet said they were glad of the grea