foreboding. Chains clanked with a noise the girl never noticed
before; the tramp of hurrying men on the hurricane deck overhead
sounded heavy and hollow. There was a squeaking of chairs that was
abominable when people gathered up books and wraps and staggered
ungracefully towards the companion-way. Altogether Miss Deane was not
wholly pleased with the preliminaries of a typhoon, whatever the
realities might be.

And then, why did gales always spring up at the close of day? Could
they not start after breakfast, rage with furious grandeur during
lunch, and die away peacefully at dinner-time, permitting one to sleep
in comfort without that straining and groaning of the ship which seemed
to imply a sharp attack of rheumatism in every joint?

Why did that silly old woman allude to her contemplated marriage to
Lord Ventnor, retailing the gossip of Hong Kong with such malicious
emphasis? For an instant Iris tried to shake the railing in comic
anger. She hated Lord Ventnor. She did not want to marry him, or
anybody else, just yet. Of course her father had hinted approval of his
lordship's obvious intentions. Countess of Ventnor! Yes, it was a nice
title. Still, she wanted another couple of years of careless freedom;
in any event, why should Lady Tozer pry and probe?

And finally, why did the steward--oh, poor old Sir John! What
_would_ have happened if the ice had slid down his neck?
Thoroughly comforted by this gleeful hypothesis, Miss Deane seized a
favorable opportunity to dart across to the starboard side and see if
Captain Ross's "heavy bank of cloud in the north-west" had put in an
appearance.

Ha! there it was, black, ominous, gigantic, rolling up over the horizon
like some monstrous football. Around it the sky deepened into purple,
fringed with a wide belt of brick red. She had never seen such a
beginning of a gale. From what she had read in books she imagined that
only in great deserts were clouds of dust generated. There could not be
dust in the dense pall now rushing with giant strides across the
trembling sea. Then what was it? Why was it so dark and menacing? And
where was desert of stone and sand to compare with this awful expanse
of water? What a small dot was this great ship on the visible surface!
But the ocean itself extended away beyond there, reaching out to the
infinite. The dot became a mere speck, undistinguishable beneath a
celestial microscope such as the gods might condescend to use.

Iris shive