n anybody on board, and she found it a welcome novelty,
after her recent strenuous social activities, to be able to enjoy a few
hours of absolute rest. What with unpacking, writing letters home, and
looking after Mrs. Stuart, who, almost from the start, had been
completely prostrated with seasickness, she had found the time slip by
rapidly and agreeably enough without having to seek diversion outside
her immediate little circle. Her chaperon's indisposition furnished her
with an admirable excuse for remaining in seclusion, and if another were
needed, she had it in the inclemency of the weather. While she herself
was not distressed by the rolling and pitching, the unusual motion did
not add to her comfort. She preferred to stay in the privacy of her
luxurious quarters, which were the object of the envy and curiosity of
every other woman on board.

Mr. Harmon had spared no expense to secure for his daughter the best on
the ship that money could buy. Grace occupied the "royal" suite, a
series of sumptuously furnished and richly decorated rooms, entirely
shut off from the rest of the ship, thus ensuring complete privacy,
comprising bedroom, parlor, dining-room, with piano, telephone, library,
etc. With her own maids to wait on her and all meals served privately,
there was no necessity to leave her rooms unless she wished to, and if
she chose to breathe the invigorating sea air there was no one to see
her walk on the deserted lower promenade-deck on which her suite
directly opened.

She had not gone ashore with the other passengers when the steamer
stopped at Gibraltar and Naples. Mrs. Stuart was still indisposed, and
she refused to leave her, but when the _Atlanta_ reached Cairo, her
chaperon was feeling better, and they both landed to see the sights.
Mrs. Stuart had visited Egypt before, but to Grace it was like a glimpse
of grand-opera land, a scene from "Aida." The waving palm-trees, the
queer Oriental dwellings, the wonderful blue sky blazing on the peaceful
desert, with its endless miles of burning sands, its beautiful oases,
its camels and picturesquely costumed natives--all this made up a
picture of delightful novelty for the young girl fresh from prosaic New
York. She gazed wondering at the blue-turbaned Copts, they laughed
merrily at the Fellahin in their blue skirts and stared at the
yellow-turbaned Jews, fierce-looking Bedouins and black Nubians. At the
cost of a few piastres but much muscular exertion, they wer