ghed immoderately.

"Hurt her feelings! Did you ever see an Irish girl whose feelings were
hurt by a present of money? I never did, though I don't often try the
experiment, that's so."

"I was going to offer her something myself, but she walked away while I
was trying to find some change," said Kirk.

The matter of a gratuity to the girl weighed on Sylvia Thorne's mind.
She had a sense of a debt in owing her a gratuity, if one may so speak.
The next day being calm and fine, and finding her company not very
attractive, for young Kirk was engaged with some gentlemen in a stupid
game of shuffleboard, she went forward to the part of the deck on which
the steerage passengers were allowed to sun themselves, and found the
Irish girl holding a baby. "You saved my hat yesterday," she said with
embarrassment.

"Sure that's not much now, miss. I'd like to do somethin' for you every
day if I could. It isn't every lady that's _such_ a lady," said the
girl, with genuine admiration of the delicate features and kindly
manner of young Sylvia Thorne.

"Does that baby belong to some friend of yours?" asked the young lady.

"No, miss; I've not got any friends aboard. Its mother's seasick, and
I'm givin' her a little rest an' holdin' the baby out here. The air of
that steerage isn't fit for a baby, now, you may say."

Should she give her any money? What was it about the girl that made her
afraid to offer a customary trifle?

"Where did you live in Ireland?" inquired Sylvia.

"At Drogheda, miss, till I went to work in the linen mills."

"Oh! you worked in the linen mills."

"Yes, miss. My father died, and my mother was poor, and girls must work
for their living. But my father wanted me to get a good bit of readin'
and writin' so as I might do better; but he died, miss, and I couldn't
leave my mother without help."

"You were the only child?"

"I've got a sister, but somehow she didn't care to go out to work, and
so I had to go out to service; and I heard that more was paid in
Ameriky, where I've got an aunt, an' I had enough to take me out, an' I
thought maybe I'd get my mother out there some day, or I'd get money
enough to make her comfortable, anyways."

"What kind of work will you do in New York? I don't believe we've got
any linen mills. I think we get Irish linen table-cloths, and so on."

"Oh, I'm going out to service. I can't do heavy work, but I can do
chambermaid's work."

All this time Sylvia was turning a quart