This was not comforting, but I did not repeat it above. Mrs. Nettlepoint
returned early to her cabin, professing herself much tired. I know not
what 'went on,' but Grace Mavis continued not to show. I went in late,
to bid Mrs. Nettlepoint good-night, and learned from her that the girl
had not been to her. She had sent the stewardess to her room for news,
to see if she were ill and needed assistance, and the stewardess came
back with the information that she was not there. I went above after
this; the night was not quite so fair and the deck was almost empty. In
a moment Jasper Nettlepoint and our young lady moved past me together.
'I hope you are better!' I called after her; and she replied, over her
shoulder--

'Oh, yes, I had a headache; but the air now does me good!'

I went down again--I was the only person there but they, and I wished to
not appear to be watching them--and returning to Mrs. Nettlepoint's
room found (her door was open into the little passage) that she was
still sitting up.

'She's all right!' I said. 'She's on the deck with Jasper.'

The old lady looked up at me from her book. 'I didn't know you called
that all right.'

'Well, it's better than something else.'

'Something else?'

'Something I was a little afraid of.' Mrs. Nettlepoint continued to look
at me; she asked me what that was. 'I'll tell you when we are ashore,' I
said.

The next day I went to see her, at the usual hour of my morning visit,
and found her in considerable agitation. 'The scenes have begun,' she
said; 'you know I told you I shouldn't get through without them! You
made me nervous last night--I haven't the least idea what you meant; but
you made me nervous. She came in to see me an hour ago, and I had the
courage to say to her, "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you frankly
that I have been scolding my son about you." Of course she asked me what
I meant by that, and I said--"It seems to me he drags you about the ship
too much, for a girl in your position. He has the air of not remembering
that you belong to some one else. There is a kind of want of taste and
even of want of respect in it." That produced an explosion; she became
very violent.'

'Do you mean angry?'

'Not exactly angry, but very hot and excited--at my presuming to think
her relations with my son were not the simplest in the world. I might
scold him as much as I liked--that was between ourselves; but she didn't
see why I should tell her that I had do