ings and painted little
things, but her talent is apparently not in that direction. Her father
has had a long illness and has lost his place--he was in receipt of a
salary in connection with some waterworks--and one of her sisters has
lately become a widow, with children and without means. And so as in
fact she never has married any one else, whatever opportunities she may
have encountered, she appears to have just made up her mind to go out to
Mr. Porterfield as the least of her evils. But it isn't very amusing.'

'That only makes it the more honourable. She will go through with it,
whatever it costs, rather than disappoint him after he has waited so
long. It is true,' I continued, 'that when a woman acts from a sense of
honour----'

'Well, when she does?' said Mrs. Nettlepoint, for I hesitated
perceptibly.

'It is so extravagant a course that some one has to pay for it.'

'You are very impertinent. We all have to pay for each other, all the
while; and for each other's virtues as well as vices.'

'That's precisely why I shall be sorry for Mr. Porterfield when she
steps off the ship with her little bill. I mean with her teeth
clenched.'

'Her teeth are not in the least clenched. She is in perfect
good-humour.'

'Well, we must try and keep her so,' I said. 'You must take care that
Jasper neglects nothing.'

I know not what reflection this innocent pleasantry of mine provoked on
the good lady's part; the upshot of them at all events was to make her
say--'Well, I never asked her to come; I'm very glad of that. It is all
their own doing.'

'Their own--you mean Jasper's and hers?'

'No indeed. I mean her mother's and Mrs. Allen's; the girl's too of
course. They put themselves upon us.'

'Oh yes, I can testify to that. Therefore I'm glad too. We should have
missed it, I think.'

'How seriously you take it!' Mrs. Nettlepoint exclaimed.

'Ah, wait a few days!' I replied, getting up to leave her.

III

The _Patagonia_ was slow, but she was spacious and comfortable, and
there was a kind of motherly decency in her long, nursing rock and her
rustling, old-fashioned gait. It was as if she wished not to present
herself in port with the splashed eagerness of a young creature. We were
not numerous enough to squeeze each other and yet we were not too few to
entertain--with that familiarity and relief which figures and objects
acquire on the great bare field of the ocean, beneath the great bright
glass of the