l Grasmere
girl, sat by the divan, fanning the sufferer with a large Japanese fan.
Rilboche had naturally, as a Frenchwoman, succumbed utterly to her own
feelings, and was moaning in her berth, wailing out every now and then
that she would never have taken service with Miladi had she suspected
her to be capable of such cruelty as to take her to live for weeks upon
the sea.

If this was the state of affairs now while the ocean was only gently
stirred, what would it be by-and-by if the tempest should really come?

'What can you be thinking of, staying on deck all night with those men?'
exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, peevishly. 'It is hardly respectable.'

She would have been still more inclined to object had she known that
Lesbia's companion had been 'that man' rather than 'those men.'

'What do you mean by all night?' Lesbia retorted, contemptuously; 'it is
only just twelve.'

'Only twelve. I thought we were close upon daylight. I have suffered an
eternity of agony.'

'I am very sorry you should be ill; but really the sea has been so
deliciously calm.'

'I believe I should have suffered less if it had been diabolically
rough. Oh, that monotonous flip-flap of the water, that slow heaving of
the boat! Nothing could be worse.'

'I am glad to hear you say that, for Don Gomez says we are likely to
have a tempest.'

'A tempest!' shrieked Georgie. 'Then let him stop the boat this instant
and put me on shore. Tell him to land me anywhere--on the Needles even.
I could stop at the lighthouse till morning. A storm at sea will be
simply my death.'

'Dear Lady Kirkbank, I was only joking,' said Lesbia, who did not want
to be worried by her chaperon's nervous apprehensions: 'so far the night
is lovely.'

'Give me a spoonful more brandy, my good creature,'--to Kibble. 'Lesbia,
you ought never to have brought me into this miserable state. I
consented to staying on board the yacht; but I never consented to
sailing on her.'

'You will soon be well, dear Lady Kirkbank; and you will have such an
appetite for breakfast to-morrow morning.'

'Where shall we be at breakfast time?'

'Off St. Catherine's Point, I believe--just half way round the island.'

'If we are not at the bottom of the sea,' groaned Georgie.

They were now in the open Channel, and the boat dipped and rose to
larger billows than had encountered her course before. Lady Kirkbank lay
in a state of collapse, in which life seemed only sustainable by
occasional teas