most redoubtably strong to my
sleepless, jaundiced eyes. Her hair, under a white knitted cap, was
smooth and well-groomed. In fact, the totality of impression she
conveyed was of a well-groomedness one would not expect of a
sea-captain's daughter, much less of a woman who had been sea-sick.
Life!--that is the key of her, the essential note of her--life and
health. I'll wager she has never entertained a morbid thought in that
practical, balanced, sensible head of hers.

"And how have you been?" she asked, then rattled on with sheer exuberance
ere I could answer. "Had a lovely night's sleep. I was really over my
sickness yesterday, but I just devoted myself to resting up. I slept ten
solid hours--what do you think of that?"

"I wish I could say the same," I replied with appropriate dejection, as I
swung in beside her, for she had evinced her intention of promenading.

"Oh, then you've been sick?"

"On the contrary," I answered dryly. "And I wish I had been. I haven't
had five hours' sleep all told since I came on board. These pestiferous
hives. . . "

I held up a lumpy wrist to show. She took one glance at it, halted
abruptly, and, neatly balancing herself to the roll, took my wrist in
both her hands and gave it close scrutiny.

"Mercy!" she cried; and then began to laugh.

I was of two minds. Her laughter was delightful to the ear, there was
such a mellowness, and healthiness, and frankness about it. On the other
hand, that it should be directed at my misfortune was exasperating. I
suppose my perplexity showed in my face, for when she had eased her
laughter and looked at me with a sobering countenance, she immediately
went off into more peals.

"You poor child," she gurgled at last. "And when I think of all the
cream of tartar I made you consume!"

It was rather presumptuous of her to poor-child me, and I resolved to
take advantage of the data I already possessed in order to ascertain just
how many years she was my junior. She had told me she was twelve years
old the time the _Dixie_ collided with the river steamer in San Francisco
Bay. Very well, all I had to do was to ascertain the date of that
disaster and I had her. But in the meantime she laughed at me and my
hives.

"I suppose it is--er--humorous, in some sort of way," I said a bit
stiffly, only to find that there was no use in being stiff with Miss
West, for it only set her off into more laughter.

"What you needed," she announced, w