ndkerchiefs, our friends' faces grew dim and
slowly faded; the fair city at our Western portal looked like
dreamland in a haze.

"You air not sorry dthat you go?" says a voice over my shoulder.

"No," I say, without turning; "I'm always glad of a change. You must
have had a good time in that yacht of yours, going where you liked,
and getting up steam the moment you had seen enough."

"Yes," says the new acquaintance meditatively, coming forward to the
side of the vessel where I can see his face, "_Mais je suis tres
fatigue._ I am glad dthat I now go home."

"You are young to be tired." I look sideways at the boyish face. He is
German, I think to myself, making a mental note of his complexion,
strangely fair for a yachtsman the eyes--heavily fringed blue
eyes--the full-lipped, sensuous mouth, shapely of its kind, shadowed
by a curling blond moustache.

"You are going home round Robin Hood's barn, aren't you?"

"Robeen Hoohd? Pardon, vill you tell me who is he _en francais_?"

"No, I'm not proud of my French, and if mistakes must be made I would
rather you made them. I meant isn't this a curious way to go to
Germany, if you are tired of travel and in haste to get home?"

"I lif not in Jhermany, how could you dthink----"

"Oh, I fancied the name was German, and----"

"Yes--yes, dthe name, but----"

"And you look a little German."

"Ah, mademoiselle, look at me more, I am in nodthing like Jhermans."

I could see the tall young stranger was a bit distressed that his
Teutonic cast betrayed him.

"My fadthur was Jherman--my modthur is Castilian, my home is Lima, I
am Peruvian, but I am educate in France. I am _cosmopolite_. And
you--air Frainch?"

"I wonder where Mrs. Steele is?" I say, and turn away to find my
friend standing at the stern, with the tears streaming down her
handsome, care-worn face, and her great hollow eyes fixed on the
fading outlines of the San Franciscan harbour. The Baron has followed,
but I turn my back and devote myself to diverting Mrs. Steele.

"We must arrange our stateroom before we are ill," she says presently,
in a state of hopeful anticipation, and we retire to No. 49 in the
Steamship _San Miguel_, which all who have taken this journey know to
be the best double room on the "crack" steamer of the line. We put up
hangers, divide pockets and racks, and prepare for a three weeks'
occupancy. Having finished our work, we go to the stern to get a whiff
of the stiff breeze blowing fr