ce. The third person was a young woman, the sort of
young woman who looks as if no buffeting wind could blow her away,
because she would be sure to face it with delight, her eager face only
glowing the brighter for the conflict.

"This is the advantage of coming early, isn't it?" said Mrs. Jefferson
Craig, with a look of congratulation at her husband. "It's not much as
it was when we saw Mr. and Mrs. Brandt off last week. You can walk on
board as slowly as you please, Father Davy; there's no one to push."

Mr. David Warne was drawing deep breaths of the salty air, with its
peculiar mixture of odours. He was also gazing about him with delighted
eyes, seeming in no haste to cross the gangway.

"When I was a boy," he said to his daughter, who remained close at his
side, "I lived, as you know, in a seaport town. Ever since I came away,
it seems to me, I have been longing to smell that salty, marshy, briny
smell again. It takes me back--how it takes me back!"

"The voyage is going to do you worlds of good," exulted Georgiana, her
eyes bright with hope. "Jefferson was quite right: the winter at home,
to help the poor spine; now the sea air, and the complete change, to
make you strong. We'll have you marching back and forth with the other
learned men, under the lindens at Trinity, while we are in Oxford--hands
clasped behind your back, impressive nose in air--the very picture of a
gentleman and a scholar."

"As if there were anything of the scholar about me," murmured Mr. Warne,
smiling at this picture of his undistinguished self. "Well, my children,
I suppose you are ready to go on, and I imagine we are not wanted in the
way here. Let us proceed across that little bridge, and then we can
look back at all this interesting activity."

Half an hour later, having taken possession of their staterooms, the
party returned to the deck, where Georgiana and her husband established
Mr. Warne in his chair, well tucked up in rugs--for the April air though
balmy was treacherous. They then fell to pacing up and down, according
to the irresistible tendency of the human foot the moment that it treads
the deck.

"He seems deliciously happy, doesn't he?" said Georgiana's voice in her
husband's ear. "If he were twenty-six instead of fifty-six he couldn't
enter into it all with more zest. How pleased he was with Mrs. Brandt's
flowers, and how dear it was of her to send them to him!"

"However happy he may be," declared Jefferson Craig, "i