ed in consideration of the irrational
proposition that he should court the desperate misery that attends a
bilious man at sea by as good as asking to be taken on a yacht voyage,
he suddenly found his ideas twisted off into another direction by the
reference to his sister's sufferings on a similar occasion in the past;
and before he could frame in words the reproof that he was disposed
to administer to Dorothy for what he probably would have styled her
heartlessness, he found his thoughts shunted to yet another track by a
direct question. It is within the bounds of possibility that Miss
Lee had arrived at a just estimate of her relative's intellectual
peculiarities, and that she even sometimes framed her discourses with a
view to taking advantage of them.

The direct question being the simplest section of Dorothy's complex
utterance, Mr. Port abandoned his intended remonstrance and reproof and
proceeded to answer it. "Yes," he said, "I know him. It's Van Rensselaer
Livingstone. His cousin, Van Ruy-ter Livingstone, married your cousin
Grace--Grace Winthrop, you know. He's a great scamp--this one, I mean;
gambles, and that sort of thing, I'm told, and drinks, and--and various
things. I shall have to speak to him if he sees me, I suppose; but of
course I shall not introduce him to you."

"Mr. Van Rensselaer Livingstone! Why so it is! How perfectly delightful!
I know him very well, Uncle Hutchinson. He was in Nice the last winter
we were there; and he broke the bank at Monaco; and he played that
perfectly absurd trick on little Prince Sporetti: cut off his little
black mustache when Prince Sporetti was--was not exactly sober, you
know, and gummed on a great red mustache instead of it; and then, before
the prince was quite himself again, took him to Lady Orrasby's ball. All
Nice was in a perfect roar over it. And they had a duel afterwards, and
Mr. Livingstone--he is a wonderful shot--instead of hurting the little
prince, just shot away the tip of his left ear as nicely as possible.
Oh, he is a delightful man--and here he comes." And Dorothy, half rising
from her chair, and paying no more attention to Mr. Port's kicks under
the table than she did to his smothered verbal remonstrances, extended
her well-shaped white hand in the most cordial manner, and in the most
cordial tone exclaimed:

"Won't you speak to me in English, Mr. Livingstone? We talked French,
I think it was, the last time we met. And how is your friend Prince