id not speak at once. Indeed, she was quiet for a long time, so
that it seemed as if she must be stricken dumb, or as if some feelings
were conflicting within her. Then at last, very gently, very quietly,
very sweetly, as if weighing her words, she spoke.

"No, there's nothing you can do. You've been too kind all along. You're
the only one on the boat that's been kind. Most of the others have
looked at me--well, you know how men look at a poor, unprotected girl.
But you, you're different; you're good, you're honourable, you're
sincere. I could see it in your face, in your eyes. I knew I could trust
you. You've been kindness itself to grandfather and I, and I never can
thank you enough."

"Nonsense! Don't talk of thanks, Berna. You don't know what a happiness
it's been to help you. I'm sorry I've done so little. Oh, I'm going to
be sincere and frank with you. The few hours I've had with you have made
me long for others. I'm a lonely beggar. I never had a sister, never a
girl friend. You're the first, and it's been like sudden sunshine to me.
Now, can't I be really and truly your friend, Berna; your friend that
would do much for you? Let me do something, anything, to show how
earnestly I mean it?"

"Yes, I know. Well, then, you are my dear, true friend--there, now."

"Yes,--but, Berna! To-morrow you'll go and we'll likely never see each
other again. What's the good of it all?"

"Well, what do you want? We will both have a memory, a very sweet, nice
memory, won't we? Believe me, it's better so. You don't want to have
anything to do with a girl like me. You don't know anything about me,
and you see the kind of people I'm going with. Perhaps I am just as bad
as they."

"Don't say that, Berna," I interposed sternly; "you're all that's good
and pure and sweet."

"No, I'm not, either. We're all of us pretty mixed. But I'm not so bad,
and it's nice of you to think those things.... Oh! if I had never come
on this terrible trip! I don't even know where we are going, and I'm
afraid, afraid."

"No, little girl."

"Yes, I can't tell you how afraid I am. The country's so savage and
lonely; the men are so like brute beasts; the women--well, they're
worse. And here are we in the midst of it. I don't know what's going to
become of us."

"Well, Berna, if it's like that, why don't you and your grandfather turn
back? Why go on?"

"He will never turn back. He'll go on till he dies. He only knows one
word of English and that's