the half-dozen," he replied,
coolly. "If you were all by yourself, it would be more like it, I
suppose, but you are taking quite a slice of your own world along with
you, and really--"

"And really pity is the very last article I have any use for. You are
right. I was only sorry for the moment. 'Eastward Ho' is a very happy
cry. How differently we shall all take Europe," she continued, in
a moment. "There is Albert, I honestly believe he will live in his
Baedeker just because he can see no further than the covers of a book.
You need not laugh, for it is a fact that people confined for years to
a room can't see beyond its limits when they are taken out into broader
space, and I don't see why it shouldn't be the same with a man who lives
in his books as Albert does."

"He sees the world in his books," said Mr. Mann, with a little spirit.

"He gets a microscopic view of it, yes," replied Mae, grandiloquently,
"and Edith--"

"Always sees just what he does," suggested Eric maliciously.

"Now, boys," said Miss Mae, assuming suddenly a mighty patronage, "I
will not have you hit at Albert and Edith in this way. It will be very
annoying to them. They have a right to act just as absurdly as they
choose. We none of us know how people who are falling in love would
act."

No, the boys agreed this was quite true.

"And I really do suppose they are falling in love, don't you?" queried
Mae.

Yes, they did both believe it.

Just here, up came the two subjects of conversation, looking, it must be
confessed, as much like one subject as any man and wife.

"What are you talking of?" asked Edith, "Madame Tussaud or a French
salad? No matter how trivial the topic, I am sure it has a foreign
flavor."

"There you are mistaken," replied the frank Eric, "we were discussing
you two people, in the most homelike kind of a way."

At this Edith blushed, Albert frowned, Mae scowled at Eric, who opened
his eyes amazedly, Norman Mann looked over the deck railing and laughed,
the wind blew, the sailors heave-ho-ed near by, and there was a grand
tableau vivant for a few seconds.

"O, come," cried Mae, "suppose we stop looking like a set of
illustrations for a phrenological journal, expressive of the various
emotions. I was only speculating on the different sights we should see
in the same places. Confess, now, Albert. Won't your eyes be forever
hunting out old musty, dusty volumes? Will not books be your first
pleasures in the sight-seein