own deck with
much of the reluctance which she often felt in submitting to an
interruption in a serial story.

They found Mrs. Halliday amusing herself with a glass of cracked ice,
giving casual attention the while to a very long story told by a
garrulous fellow-passenger in a wadded hood.

"Oh, Mamma," Blythe cried, perching upon the extension foot of her
mother's chair, "why didn't you and Mr. DeWitt stay longer? And how
did it happen that nobody else got wind of it? I don't believe a
single person knows what we've been about! And oh! we have had such a
glorious time! It was like being a bird! Only that little girl in the
steerage oughtn't to be there, and Mr. Grey and I are going to see
what can be done about it, and----"

The wadded hood had fallen silent, and now its wearer rose, with an
air of resignation, and carried her tale to another listener, while
Mr. Grey also moved away, leaving Blythe to tell her own story.

They were great friends, Mrs. Halliday and this only child of hers,
and well they might be; for, as Blythe had informed Mr. Grey early in
their acquaintance; "Mamma and I are all there are of us."

As she sat beside this best of friends,--having dropped into the chair
left vacant by the wadded hood,--Blythe lived over again every
experience and sensation of that eventful afternoon, and with the
delightful sense of sharing it with somebody who understood. And,
since the most abiding impression of all had been her solicitude for
the little steerage passenger, she found no difficulty in arousing her
mother to an almost equal interest in the child's fate.

And presently, when the cornet player passed them, with the air of
short-lived importance which comes to a ship's cornet three times a
day, and, stationing himself well aft, played the cheerful little tune
which heralds the approaching dinner-hour, Blythe slipped her hand
into her mother's and said:

"We'll do something about that little girl; won't us, Mumsey?"

Upon which Mrs. Halliday, rising, and patting the rosy cheek which she
used to call the "apple of her eye," said:

"I shouldn't wonder if us did, Blythe."

CHAPTER II

THE LITTLE SIGNORINA

Blythe lay awake a long time that night, thinking, not of the bridge
nor of the "crow's nest," not of the Captain nor of the supposed Hugh
Dalton, but of the child in the steerage. How stifling it must be down
there to-night! It was hot and airless enough here, where Blythe had a
stat