rt, and easily drew the rest out of Mr. Frazer by adroit questioning,
for, I assure you, it made me curious."

Mr. Frazer was the purser, and the one who had stood talking with
Captain Hosmer when Hope ran out to him, the night before.

"What is it?" asked both girls in a breath, and the traveler added,
with a laugh,

"Yes, indeed, if any one knows anything funny on shipboard it is a
bounden duty to tell it."

"Well, I hardly know whether you could call this funny, or
tragic--perhaps serio-comic is the word," returned Mrs. Campbell in her
smooth little drawl, with its expression of amused indifference, which
always stimulated the interest of the listener. "It was exciting,
anyhow. Somewhere well along towards midnight, last evening, a certain
young lady--a mere girl indeed--was promenading the deck with a strange
young man, when her sister, probably knowing the girl's propensities,
rose from her bed, rushed out to her father, who was at his post,"--she
cast an eye upward towards the bridge--"and begged of him to 'save
sister,' upon which, rather sternly, he marched her back to her cabin
and, hunting up the other one, took her from her escort and led her
inside also, where I imagine there was a scene. At any rate the
stewardess was busy in there for some time, and when I asked what had
happened, she said, 'Only hysterics, ma'am; they're common enough.'
But as I happened to know where she was, and what had just happened, I
did not treat the matter so lightly. Of course it was an exaggeration
of the other girl, but it showed that some people who seem very
innocent will bear looking after. Too bad that pretty girls must spoil
everything by being vain and--well, careless! But the two I mention
are very unconventional."

The Windemeres, mother and daughters, listened with groans of horror,
the attache with a troubled look, and the traveler with a gravity that
was almost stern. Quite unnoted by the absorbed group, another also
heard, for Lady Moreham, seemingly absorbed in a book and hidden by
some projection of the deck, had dropped the volume and was scowling
savagely. She was not taken with these young women, for at first they
had distinctly snubbed her, and later, having learned her title, had so
suddenly changed to fawning and flattery that she was thoroughly
disgusted.

After an instant the traveler spoke abruptly,

"Do you say you heard and saw this _yourself_, Mrs. Campbell?"

"A part of it--yes, sir.