dent
deshabille, she made two or three attempts to pluck her into propriety;
but the child, recognizing the cause as well as the effect, looked
askance at me and only stiffened herself the more. "Sarah Walker, I'm
shocked."

"It ain't HIS room anyway," said Sarah, eying me malevolently. "What's
he doing here?"

There was so much truth in this that I involuntarily drew back abashed.
The nurse-maid ejaculated "Sarah!" and lifted her eyes in hopeless
protest.

"And he needn't come seeing YOU," continued Sarah, lazily rubbing the
back of her head against the chair; "my papa don't allow it. He warned
you 'bout the other gentleman, you know."

"Sarah Walker!"

I felt it was necessary to say something. "Don't you want to come with
me and look at the sea?" I said with utter feebleness of invention. To
my surprise, instead of actively assaulting me Sarah Walker got up,
shook her hair over her shoulders, and took my hand.

"With your hair in that state?" almost screamed the domestic. But
Sarah Walker had already pulled me into the hall. What particularly
offensive form of opposition to authority was implied in this prompt
assent to my proposal I could only darkly guess. For myself I knew I
must appear to her a weak impostor. What would there possibly be in
the sea to interest Sarah Walker? For the moment I prayed for a
water-spout, a shipwreck, a whale, or any marine miracle to astound her
and redeem my character. I walked guiltily down the hall, holding her
hand bashfully in mine. I noticed that her breast began to heave
convulsively; if she cried I knew I should mingle my tears with hers.
We reached the veranda in gloomy silence. As I expected, the sea lay
before us glittering in the sun--vacant, staring, flat, and hopelessly
and unquestionably uninteresting.

"I knew it all along," said Sarah Walker, turning down the corners of
her mouth; "there never was anything to see. I know why you got me to
come here. You want to tell me if I'm a good girl you'll take me to
sail some day. You want to say if I'm bad the sea will swallow me up.
That's all you want, you horrid thing, you!"

"Hush!" I said, pointing to the corner of the veranda.

A desperate idea of escape had just seized me. Bolt upright in the
recess of a window sat a nursemaid who had succumbed to sleep equally
with her helpless charge in the perambulator beside her. I instantly
recognized the infant--a popular organism known as "Baby Buckly"--th