tion of a button.

You overhear her on the tender, as you leave the ship next day: "Oh,
yes, I love the sea. You can let yourself go and be sure of getting out
of everything in a week!" Perhaps you see her in Paris, with new
escorts. Perhaps she is on the same boat when you go home again. And if
she's not, there's some one else just like her. And also there is some
one just like each of the other passengers with whom you left New York.

But for all that, there are differences between the voyage east and the
voyage west. Letters of credit have shrunk, wardrobes have increased,
and the handiwork of the European bill-poster may be seen on trunks and
bags as that of his American confrere is seen at home on ash-barrels
and fences. And there's more to talk about when you are going west:
Paris dressmakers, European hotels, and the American custom-house. If
you talk with Europeans, it is always nice to give them fresh
impressions as to what's the matter with their country and with them.

So the gray, dismal voyage passes. At last there comes the morning when
you wake to see the sunshine streaming through your port-hole; when,
though your clothing and the flowered cretonne curtains of your berth
are swinging freely back and forth in time with creaking sounds which
chase each other through the bounding ship, you do not care, because
your heart is glowing with an unaccustomed happiness.

"Fane brate day, sir," says the steward, in a cheery voice, as he brings
in your hotwater can.

[Illustration: THERE IS A HORRIBLE FASCINATION ABOUT A SHIP'S CONCERT,
SOMETHING HYPNOTIC THAT DRAWS YOU, VERY MUCH AGAINST YOUR WORD AND
WILL.]

"A little rougher, isn't it?" you return, as if you hoped it was.

"A bit _fresher_, perhaps, sir," he corrects. "She did put 'er foot in a
few 'oles lahst night. See the land, sir?"

Ah, that's why you're so gay!

"Land! Where?"

You leap from your berth to the port-hole in one bound.

A schooner and a coastwise steamer are in sight, gulls are swinging in
long circles with the ship, and far away on the horizon lies a haze
which is America.

You dress with care and hurry to the deck. You bow and give a gay "good
morning!" to some people you've not spoken to before. You even have a
word for the man who always walks with a pedometer, and the one who is
coming back from Germany after having put a noiseless soup-spoon on the
market. The deck is all abloom with pretty girls in pretty hats and
pretty