state-room.

"The miserable creature imagined me frightened out of my senses. 'No
immediate danger Miss,' said he, 'compose yourself; the ship will
right up directly--throwing all the light trash overboard--chicken
coops just gone over.'

"'Man,' moaned a woman on whose face was blended an expression of
benevolence and nausea, 'did you open those coops, and let out those
fowls, that they may not drift about and starve?'

"'The sea, madam,' said the builder of ships, grandly, 'the sea has
swallowed them coops and all.'

"Miss Flora has just asked me if my letter is not most finished,
'for,' said the cunning little elf 'you might put in that papa called
you a stubborn little wretch yesterday, when you wouldn't go down to
the cabin.'

"I wonder if he dared to say it, I suppose I looked incredulous, for
the little mischief continues to reiterate the assertion, but she
consolingly adds, 'He was wery, wery angry then, and he knew you
wouldn't hear him. You don't care, do you?'

"I have almost told a fib, and said, 'no indeed.'

Two days later.

"I have had my revenge on the captain by jumping overboard.

"Yesterday Flora and myself were lounging upon the stationary seat,
attached to the railing of the hurricane deck. Both of us had been
silent for some time. I had been gazing dreamily down into the deep,
blue waters thinking of, I hardly know what, but, I remember that a
strange impulse occasionally seized me to plunge beneath those
snow-capped waves and rest my poor head upon the ocean's bed, for it
is not as easy to hold it up now as it once was, when mammy lived, and
took me in her arms and bade the 'Honey hold up her blessed little
head, and never let that droop whatever might come.' Precious old
creature, she too bore a life long sorrow, and bravely bore it. Daddy
never suspected, that his bustling, little grey wife had a tender
secret burried beneath the tumult of activity, which continually
bubbled up within her generous breast.

"But I am digressing from the subject of my sea bath, of which Miss
Flora was the immediate occasion. She had incautiously leaned too far
over the railing, and, losing her balance, fell. I was startled from
my reverie by a slight scream, and in an instant more, she was beneath
the waves. I knew that I could swim, and had I not, I would have
plunged after her all the same.

"I discovered, however, that the waves in a quiet cove of the
Mississippi, were but ripples compared with t