ey think," she
asked, "that it's going to be a very long voyage?"

"I haven't been to the smoking-room--that's where most of the thinking
is done on such points; the ship's officers never seem to know about
it--since the weather changed. Should you mind it greatly?"

"I wouldn't care if it never ended," said the girl, with such a note of
dire sincerity that Breckon instantly changed his first mind as to her
words implying a pose. She took any deeper implication from them in
adding, "I didn't know I should like being at sea."

"Well, if you're not sea-sick," he assented, "there are not many
pleasanter things in life."

She suggested, "I suppose I'm not well enough to be sea-sick." Then she
seemed to become aware of something provisional in his attendance, and
she said, "You mustn't stay on my account. I can get down when I want
to."

"Do let me stay," he entreated, "unless you'd really rather not," and
as there was no chair immediately attainable, he crouched on the deck
beside hers.

"It makes me think," she said, and he perceived that she meant the sea,
"of the cold-white, heavy plunging foam in 'The Dream of Fair Women.'
The words always seemed drenched!"

"Ah, Tennyson, yes," said Breckon, with a disposition to smile at the
simple-heartedness of the literary allusion. "Do young ladies read
poetry much in Ohio?"

"I don't believe they do," she answered. "Do they anywhere?"

"That's one of the things I should like to know. Is Tennyson your
favorite poet?"

"I don't believe I have any," said Ellen. "I used to like Whither, and
Emerson; aid Longfellow, too."

"Used to! Don't you now?"

"I don't read them so much now," and she made a pause, behind which he
fancied her secret lurked. But he shrank from knowing it if he might.

"You're all great readers in your family," he suggested, as a polite
diversion.

"Lottie isn't," she answered, dreamily. "She hates it."

"Ah, I referred more particularly to the others," said Breckon, and
he began to laugh, and then checked himself. "Your mother, and the
judge--and your brother--"

"Boyne reads about insects," she admitted.

"He told me of his collection of cocoons. He seems to be afraid it has
suffered in his absence."

"I'm afraid it has," said Ellen, and then remained silent.

"There!" the young man broke out, pointing seaward. "That's rather a
fine one. Doesn't that realize your idea of something mountains high?
Unless your mountains are very high in Oh