to her feet and seized it as it swept
past, making a handsome "catch on the fly." A sudden revulsion of the
vessel caused her to stagger and almost to fall, but she held on to the
hat as though life depended on it. The party on the upper deck cheered
her, but their voices could hardly have reached her in the midst of the
confused sounds of the sea and the wind.

The student, Mr. Walter Kirk, a large, bright, blond fellow, jumped to
his feet and was about to throw himself over the rail. It was a chance
to do something for Miss Thorne; he felt impelled to recover her
seventy-five-cent hat with all the abandon of a lover flinging himself
into the sea to rescue his lady-love. But a sudden sense of the
ludicrousness of wasting so much eagerness on a hat and a sudden lurch
of the ship checked him. He made a gesture to the girl who held the
hat, and then ran aft to descend for it. The Irish girl, with the curly
hair blown back from her fair face, started to meet Mr. Kirk, but
paused abruptly before a little inscription which said that steerage
passengers were not allowed aft. Then turning suddenly, she mounted a
coil of rope, and held the hat up to Miss Thorne.

"There's your hat, miss," she said.

"Thank you," said Sylvia.

"Sure you're welcome, miss," she said, not with a broad accent, but
with a subdued trace of Irish in the inflection and idiom.

When the gallant Walter Kirk came round to where the girl, just
dismounted from the cordage, stood, he was puzzled to see her without
the hat.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"The young lady's got it her own self," she replied.

Kirk felt foolish. Had his chum come down over the rail for it? He
would do something to distinguish himself. He fumbled in his pockets
for a coin to give the girl, but found nothing smaller than a half
sovereign, and with that he could ill afford to part. The girl had
meanwhile turned away, and Kirk had nothing left but to go back to the
upper deck.

The enthusiastic Sylvia spoke in praise of the Irish girl for her
agility and politeness, but the young lady alongside, who did not like
the Irish, told her that what the girl wanted was a shilling or two.
Servants in Europe were always beggars, and the Irish people
especially. But she wouldn't give the girl a quarter if it were her
hat. What was the use of making people so mean-spirited?

"I'd like to give her something, if I thought it wouldn't hurt her
feelings," said Sylvia, at which the other lau