"And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go abroad," I added, as a final clincher.

"I know it. I know I have. But—but now when it comes to really goin' I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here in town and one from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not, Hosy. I—I'm frightened, I guess."

Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.

"Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth," it read. "Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion? Write particulars."

The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been paid and she was certain they must be "dreadful expensive." All that money could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began preparations.

I did not write the "particulars" requested. I had a feeling that Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it, I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him there. Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had selected.

His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my "foreign junket," and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. "Travel light," he wrote. "You can buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you reach New York." But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for what port she was to sail.

So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for information upon those more or less important subjects, and we speculated and guessed not a little. The New York dailies were not obtainable in Bayport except during the summer months and the Boston publications did not give the New York sailings. I wrote to a friend in Boston and he sent me the leading journals of the former city and, as soon as they arrived, Hephzy sat down upon the sitting-room carpet—which she had insisted upon having taken up to be packed away in moth balls—to look at the maritime advertisements. I am quite certain it was the only time she sat down, except at meals, that day.

I selected one of the papers and she another. We reached the same conclusion simultaneously.

"Why, it must be—" she began.

"The Princess Eulalie," I finished.

"It is the only one that sails on the tenth. There is one on the eleventh, though."

"Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most expensive liners afloat. It isn't likely that Jim had booked us for the 'Plutonia.' She would scarcely be in our—in my class."

"Humph! I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you, Hosy. But I would look funny on her, I give in. I've read about her. She's always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and things. Just the sort of folks you write about. She'd be just the one for you."

I shook my head. "My lords and ladies are only paper dolls, Hephzy," I said, ruefully. "I should be as lost as you among the flesh and blood variety. No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours. She runs to Amsterdam, though. Odd that Jim should send me to Holland."

Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.

"I don't doubt he did it on purpose," she declared. "He knew neither you nor I was anxious to go to England. He knows we don't think much of the English, after our experience with that Morley brute."

"No, he doesn't know any such thing. I've never told him a word about Morley. And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy. I've kept that as a—as a surprise for him."

"Well, never mind. I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England. It's nearer to France."

I was surprised. "Nearer to France?" I repeated. "What difference does that make? We don't know anyone in France."

Hephzibah was plainly shocked. "Why, Hosy!" she protested. "Have you forgotten Little Frank? He is in France somewhere, or he was at last accounts."

"Good Lord!" I groaned. Then I got up and went out. I had forgotten "Little Frank" and hoped that she had. If she was to flit about Europe seeing "Little Frank" on every corner I foresaw trouble. "Little Frank" was likely to be the bane of my existence.

We left Bayport on Monday morning. The house was cleaned and swept and scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom. Every door was double-locked and every window nailed. Burglars are unknown in Bayport, but that didn't make any difference. "You can't be too careful," said Hephzy. I was of the opinion that you could.

The cat had been "farmed out" with Susanna's people and Susanna herself was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night and let them out each morning. Their keeper had a carefully prepared schedule as to quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had prepared and furnished it.

"And don't you give 'em any fish," ordered Hephzy. "I ate a chicken once that had been fed on fish, and—my soul!"

There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off. Captain Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were near California by this time. But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was there and so was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey Bangs and Captain Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several others. Oh, yes! and Angeline Phinney. Angeline was there, of course. If anything happened in Bayport and Angeline was not there to help it happen, then—I don't know what then; the experiment had never been tried in my lifetime.

Everyone said pleasant things to us. They really seemed sorry to have us leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves as glad. It would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much to tell when we got back. Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me to give a little talk to the Sunday school upon my return. It would be a wonderful thing for the children. To my mind the most wonderful part of the idea was that he should take my consent for granted. I talk to the Sunday school! I, the Quahaug! My knees shook even at the thought.

Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a "lovely time." She declared that it had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing. But she should never do it—no, no! Such things wasn't for her. If she had a husband like some women it might be, but not as 'twas. She had long ago given up hopin' to do anything but keep boarders, and she had to do that all by herself.

Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did not attempt defence. I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom. It was time; he had attended his wife's academy a long while.

Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept in the cellar over winter. "Nice to eat on the cars," he told us. Everyone asked us to send postcards. Miss Phinney was especially solicitous.

"It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin," she declared.

When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from the window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's request.

"I send HER postcards!" she snapped. "I think I see myself doin' it! All she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to Beersheba showin' 'em to everybody and talkin' about how extravagant we are and wonderin' if we borrowed the money. But there! it won't make any difference. If I don't send 'em to her she'll read all I send to other folks. She and Rebecca Simmons are close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads everything that comes through her husband's post-office. All that aren't sealed, that is—yes, and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're not sealed tight."

Her next remark was a surprising one.

"Hosy," she said, "how much they all think of you, don't they. Isn't it nice to know you're so popular."

I turned in the seat to stare at her.

"Popular!" I repeated. "Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows signs of softening."

She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to it.

"I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all, like—well, Eben Salters," she went on. "But the folks that count all respect and like you, Hosy. I know they do."

Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman—since the departure of the Honorable Heman Atkins. He has filled every office in his native village and he has served one term as representative in the State House at Boston. He IS popular.

"It is marvelous how affection can be concealed," I observed, with sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash.

"Of course they don't tell you of it," she said. "If they did you'd probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to 'em again. But they do like you, and I know it."

It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender—and change the subject.

In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and traveling cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder of the afternoon at a bookseller's. There was a set of "Early English Poets" there, nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny and grand, but middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to me. The price, however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought not to afford it. Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and comfortably shabby, and who had beguiled from me the information that I was about to travel, suggested that the "Poets" would make very pleasant reading en route.

"I have found," he said, beaming over his spectacles, "that a little book of this kind," patting one of the volumes, "which may be carried in the pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do that with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!"

He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is expensive, for I bought the "English Poets" and ordered them sent to my hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I began to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be crowded and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets.

Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed.

"But didn't you buy ANYTHING?" I asked. "Where in the world have you been?"

She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city. She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost so much.

"There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully," she said. "It was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so it wouldn't show water spots. I've been out sailing enough times to know how your things get water-spotted. It fitted me real nice; there wouldn't have to be a thing done to it. But it cost thirty-one dollars! 'My soul!' says I, 'I can't afford THAT!' But they didn't have anything cheaper that wouldn't have made me look like one of those awful play-actin' girls that came to Bayport with the Uncle Tom's Cabin show. And I tried everywhere and nothin' pleased me so well."

"So you didn't buy the coat?"

"BUY it? My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost—"

"I know. What else did you see that you didn't buy?"

"Hey? Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on. That fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened. And it would have gone SO well with that coat. But the suit cost FORTY dollars. 'Good land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for poor folks?' And you ought to have seen the look that girl gave me! And a hat—oh, yes, I saw a hat! It was—"

There was a great deal more. Summed up it amounted to something like this: All that suited her had been too high-priced and all that she considered within her means hadn't suited her at all. So she had bought practically nothing but a few non-essentials. And we were to leave for New York the following night and sail for Europe the day after.

"Hephzy," said I, "you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll go with you."

Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.

"Hephzy," said I, "when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with your appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we must think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and so much depends on a first impression."

Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. "Humph!" she sniffed, "that's the first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank. All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are more comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way, I'll fetch up in one before the first month's over."

We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those "Early English Poets" was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here, there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied evil to come.

"Books are the worse things goin' to make creases," she declared. "They're all sharp edges."

I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.

We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel. I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I was not sure—absolutely sure—which steamer it was to be. The "Princess Eulalie" almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.

Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.

"Just think, Hosy!" she cried, "this is the last night either of us will spend on dry land."

"Heavens! I hope it won't be as bad as that," I retorted. "Holland is pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find some dry spots."

She did not laugh. "You know what I mean," she observed. "To-morrow night at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty deep."

"We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'" I answered. "Go to sleep."

Neither of us spoke the truth. At twelve the following night we were neither "far out on the vasty deep" nor on the "Princess Eulalie."

My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city home. He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was, that is, at the hotel. He would be there in an hour, he said.

He was five minutes ahead of his promise. We shook hands heartily.

"You are going to take my prescription, after all," he crowed. "Didn't I tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors? Bully for you! Wish I was going with you. Who is?"

"Come to my room and I'll show you," said I. "You may be surprised."

"See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm like yourself, have you? If you have, I refuse—"

"Come and see."

We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room. I opened the door.

"Hephzy," said I, "here is someone you know."

Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried in.

"Well, Mr. Campbell!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand, "how do you do? We got here all right, you see. But the way Hosy has been wastin' money, his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began to think one spell we'd never get any further. Is it time to start for the steamer yet?"

Jim's face was worth looking at. He shook Hephzibah's hand mechanically, but he did not speak. Instead he looked at her and at me. I didn't speak either; I was having a thoroughly good time.

"Had we ought to start now?" repeated Hephzibah. "I'm all ready but puttin' on my things."

Jim came out of his trance. He dropped the hand and came to me.

"Are you—is she—" he stammered.

"Yes," said I. "Miss Cahoon is going with me. I wrote you I had selected a good traveling companion. I have, haven't I?"

"He would have it so, Mr. Campbell," put in Hephzy. "I said no and kept on sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless I did. I know you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it isn't any queerer to you than it is to me."

Jim behaved very well, considering. He did not laugh. For a moment I thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I should have done, said things for which I might have been sorry later on, probably. But he did not laugh. He didn't even express the tremendous surprise which he must have felt. Instead he shook hands again with both of us and said it was fine, bully, just the thing.

"To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon," he declared, "I have been rather fearful of this pet infant of ours. I didn't know what sort of helpless creature he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him in the wilds of Europe. I expected another babe in the woods and I was contemplating cabling the police to look out for them and shoo away the wolves. But he'll be all right now. Yes, indeed! he'll be looked out for now."

"Then you approve?" I asked.

He shot a side-long glance at me. "Approve!" he repeated. "I'm crazy about the whole business."

I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so. I did not care. I agreed with him in this—the whole business was insane and Hephzibah's going was the only sensible thing about it, so far.

His next question was concerning our baggage. I told him I had left it at the railway station because I was not sure where it should be sent.

"What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?" I asked.

He looked at me oddly. "What?" he queried. "The 'Princess Eulalie'? Twelve o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure."

"You're not sure! And it is after nine now. It strikes me that—"

"Never mind what strikes you. So long as it isn't lightning you shouldn't complain. Have you the baggage checks? Give them to me."

I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the telephone and gave a number. A short conversation followed. Then he hung up the receiver.

"One of the men from the office will be here soon," he said. "He will attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see that it is put in your staterooms. Now, then, tell me all about it. What have you been doing since I saw you? When did you arrive? How did you happen to think of taking—er—Miss Cahoon with you? Tell me the whole."

I told him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was decidedly fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the station half an hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel room, when the ship that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble with Fate, to her mind.

The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned over to him. So also were our bags and our umbrellas. Campbell stepped into the hall and the pair held a whispered conversation. Hephzy seized the opportunity to express to me her perturbation.

"My soul, Hosy!" she whispered. "Mr. Campbell's out of his head, ain't he? Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by. We'll be too late. Can't you make him hurry?"

I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our guardian know it for the world. If we lost a dozen steamers I shouldn't call his attention to the fact. I might be a "Babe in the Wood," but he should not have the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.

He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more questions. Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please him a great deal. At some of them he laughed uproariously. At last he looked at his watch.

"Almost eleven," he observed. "I must be getting around to the office. Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so? I have his letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had better come around with me and get them. If you have any last bits of shopping to do, now is your opportunity. Or you might wait here if you prefer. We will be back at half-past twelve and lunch together."

I started. Hephzy sprang from the chair.

"Half-past twelve!" I cried.

"Lunch together!" gasped Hephzy. "Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess Eulalie' sails at noon. You said so yourself!"

Jim smiled. "I know I did," he replied, "but that is immaterial. You are not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.' Your passages are booked on the 'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until one o'clock to-morrow morning. We will meet here for lunch at twelve-thirty. Come, Kent."

I didn't attempt an answer. I am not exactly sure what I did. A few minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I have a hazy recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and of hearing her voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:

"The 'Plutonia'! My soul and body! The 'Plutonia'! Me—ME on the 'Plutonia'!"

What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference. I know I called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one of which he deserved.

"Confound you!" I cried. "You know I wouldn't have dreamed of taking a passage on a ship like that. She's a floating Waldorf, everyone says so. Dress and swagger society and—Oh, you idiot! I wanted quiet! I wanted to be alone! I wanted—"

Jim interrupted me.

"I know you did," he said. "But you're not going to have them. You've been alone too much. You need a change. If I know the 'Plutonia'—and I've crossed on her four times—you're going to have it."

He burst into a roar of laughter. We were in a cab, fortunately, or his behavior would have attracted attention. I could have choked him.

"You imbecile!" I cried. "I have a good mind to throw the whole thing up and go home to Bayport. By George, I will!"

He continued to chuckle.

"I see you doing it!" he observed. "How about your—what's her name?—Hephzibah? Going to tell her that it's all off, are you? Going to tell her that you will forfeit your passage money and hers? Why, man, haven't you a heart? If she was booked for Paradise instead of Paris she couldn't be any happier. Don't be foolish! Your trunks are on the 'Plutonia' and on the 'Plutonia' you'll be to-night. It's the best thing that can happen to you. I did it on purpose. You'll thank me come day."

I didn't thank him then.

We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded with tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes bearing the name of the Bank of England. Hephzibah was still in the rocking chair. I am sure she had not left it.

We lunched in the hotel dining-room. Campbell ordered the luncheon and paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance. She was too excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent of her wardrobe to talk of less important matters.

"Oh dear, Hosy!" she wailed, "WHY didn't I buy another best dress. DO you suppose my black one will be good enough? All those lords and ladies and millionaires on the 'Plutonia'! Won't they think I'm dreadful poverty-stricken. I saw a dress I wanted awfully—in one of those Boston stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it was so dear. And I didn't tell you I wanted it because I knew if I did you'd buy it. You're so reckless with money. But now I wish I'd bought it myself. What WILL all those rich people think of me?"

"About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine," I answered, ruefully. "Jim here has put up a joke on us. He is the only one who is getting any fun out of it."

Jim, for a wonder, was serious. "Miss Cahoon," he declared, earnestly, "don't worry. I'm sure the black silk is all right; but if it wasn't it wouldn't make any difference. On the 'Plutonia' nobody notices other people's clothes. Most of them are too busy noticing their own. If Kent has his evening togs and you have the black silk you'll pass muster. You'll have a gorgeous time. I only wish I was going with you."

He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon. He insisted on taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the performance seemed to amuse him hugely. It had been eleven years, so she said, since she went to the theater.

"Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some of those other plays that come to Bayport," she added. "I suppose I'm making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin' but make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder what Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really travelin'—just goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his last years, about me. Seemed to feel that he hadn't taken me around and done as much for me as he ought to in the days when he could. 'Twas just nonsense, his feelin' that way, and I told him so. But I wonder if he knows now how happy I am. I hope he does. My goodness! I can't realize it myself. Oh, there goes the curtain up again! Oh, ain't that pretty! I AM actin' ridiculous, I know, Mr. Campbell,' but you mustn't mind. Laugh at me all you want to; I sha'n't care a bit."

Jim didn't laugh—then. Neither did I. He and I looked at each other and I think the same thought was in both our minds. Good, kind, whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah! The last misgiving, the last doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a traveling companion vanished from my thoughts. For the first time I was actually glad I was going, glad because of the happiness it would mean to her.

When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd to shake my hand.

"Congratulations, old man," he whispered; "you did exactly the right thing. You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right. She's a brick. But don't I wish I was going along! Oh my! oh my! to think of you two wandering about Europe together! If only I might be there to see and hear! Kent, keep a diary; for my sake, promise me you'll keep a diary. Put down everything she says and read it to me when you get home."

He left us soon afterward. He had given up the entire day to me and would, I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I would not hear of it. A messenger from the office had brought him word of the presence in New York of a distinguished scientist who was preparing a manuscript for publication and the scientist had requested an interview that night. Campbell was very anxious to obtain that manuscript and I knew it. Therefore I insisted that he leave us. He was loathe to do so.

"I hate to, Kent," he declared. "I had set my heart on seeing you on board and seeing you safely started. But I do want to nail Scheinfeldt, I must admit. The book is one that he has been at work on for years and two other publishing houses are as anxious as ours to get it. To-night is my chance, and to-morrow may be too late."

"Then you must not miss the chance. You must go, and go now."

"I don't like to. Sure you've got everything you need? Your tickets and your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you across comfortably?"

"Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'"

"Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English branch—you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand—and whatever help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them instructions. Think you can get down to the ship all right?"

I laughed. "I think it fairly possible," I said. "If I lose my way, or Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you."

"The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by, Kent. Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon. Take care of this—er—clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone eat him on the half-shell, or anything like that."

Hephzy smiled. "They'd have to eat me first," she said, "and I'm pretty old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry."

"I don't. Good luck to you both—and good-by."

A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.

"There!" she exclaimed; "I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow I feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would think I was homesick before I started."

I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel. There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.

"If you don't mind, Hosy," she said, "I guess I'd rather stay right here in the room. I—I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go to one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could stand."

So we sat together in the room at the hotel—sat and thought. The minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might be and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course, and occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most numerous. Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, each with his or her life and interests bound up in the life and interests of the other. I envied them. Mine had been a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind of life. No one had shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one had spurred me on to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered with me, helping me through the shadows and laughing with me in the sunshine. No one, since Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's love and care and sacrifice, fine as they were, were different. I had missed something, I had missed a great deal, and now it was too late. Youth and high endeavor and ambition had gone by; I had left them behind. I was a solitary, queer, self-centered old bachelor, a "quahaug," as my fellow-Bayporters called me. And to ship a quahaug around the world is not likely to do the creature a great deal of good. If he lives through it he is likely to be shipped home again tougher and drier and more useless to the rest of creation than ever.

Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my dismal meditations with a long sigh. I started and turned toward her.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Oh, nothin'," was the solemn answer. "I was wonderin', that's all. Just wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley spoke plain enough, so I suppose—"

I judged it high time to interrupt.

"Come, Hephzy," said I. "It is half-past ten. We may as well start at once."

Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But —th street, at the foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however. Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.

"Mercy on us, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "I never saw such a procession of carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I hope it isn't a presentiment."

If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened the door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage. I helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she looked about her.

"Hosy! Hosy!" she whispered, seizing my arm tight, "we've made a mistake. This isn't the steamboat; this is—is a weddin' or somethin'. Look! look!"

I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and those who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a mistake. Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing electric sign of the "Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company."

"No, Hephzy," said I; "I guess it is the right place. Come."

I gave her my arm—that is, she continued to clutch it with both hands—and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another and smaller door.

"Lift this way! This way to the lift!" bawled a voice.

"What's a lift?" whispered Hephzy, tremulously, "Hosy, what's a lift?"

"An elevator," I whispered in reply.

"But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we? I never heard—"

I don't know what she never heard. The sentence was not finished. Into the lift we went. On either side of us were men in evening dress and directly in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-cloaked, with diamonds in her ears and a rustle of silk at every point of her persons. The car reeked with perfume.

The large woman wriggled uneasily.

"George," she said, in a loud whisper, "why do they crowd these lifts in this disgusting way? And WHY," with another wriggle, "do they permit PERSONS with packages to use them?"

As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.

"She meant us, Hosy," she said. "I've got three of those books of yours in this bundle under my arm. I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into either of the valises. But she needn't have been so disagreeable about it, need she."

Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and into a huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the cool air from the river blew upon our faces. Beyond these openings loomed an enormous something with rows of railed walks leading up its sides. Hephzibah and I, moving in a sort of bewildered dream, found ourselves ascending one of these walks. At its end was another doorway and, beyond, a great room, with more elevators and a mosaic floor, and mahogany and gilt and gorgeousness, and silk and broadcloth and satin.

Hephzy gasped and stopped short.

"It IS a mistake, Hosy!" she cried. "Where is the steamer?"

I smiled. I felt almost as "green" and bewildered as she, but I tried not to show my feelings.

"It is all right, Hephzy," I answered. "This is the steamer. I know it doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on board at last."

Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights of New York grow fainter behind us.

Hephzibah drew a deep breath.

"It is so," she said. "It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy."

"We are," said I. "There is no doubt of it."

"I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again."

"I wonder."

"Do you think HE—Do you think Little Frank—"

"Hephzy," I interrupted, "if we are going to bed at all before morning, we had better start now."

"All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.' Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel."



CHAPTER V

In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes

It is astonishing—the ease with which the human mind can accustom itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and the "Plutonia." And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end we were accustomed to both—to a degree. We had learned to do certain things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered, and new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their newness and come to be accepted as everyday facts.

For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles, something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a "dress-up" game for children and amateur actors. The "English swell" in the performances of the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance to the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an examination. His "English accent" was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior. No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.

And yet, here on the "Plutonia," were at least a dozen men, men of dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were used to them. The first evening before we left port, one or two were in evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The fact that they were on an English ship, bound for England, brought the monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy said, "like hoptoads after the first spring thaw." Her amazed comments were unique.

"But what good are they, Hosy?" she demanded. "Can they see with 'em?"

"I suppose they can," I answered. "You can see better with your spectacles than you can without them."

"Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as that goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that man there," pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster, whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened "The Duke of Labrador." "Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this mornin'. If he needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't he? Don't tell me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a regular boarder at Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto, and that's only a few miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish thing!" as the "Duke of Labrador" strutted by our deck-chairs; "I suppose you think you're pretty, don't you? Well, you're not. You look for all the world like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp out."

I laughed. "Hephzy," said I, "every nation has its peculiarities and the monocle is an English national institution, like—well, like tea, for instance."

"Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the institution I'd put HIM in."

She didn't fancy the "Duke of Labrador." Neither did she fancy tea at breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two sessions with the "Plutonia's" breakfast coffee completed her education.

"Bring me tea," she said to our table steward on the third morning. "I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea and I'll try to forget what time it is."

We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon. Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning their behavior.

"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered, as we sat together in the "Lounge," sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the inevitable plum cake. "Did you hear what that woman said about her husband?"

I had not heard, and said so.

"Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she was sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept askin'. 'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't come soon, he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do you know the conclusion I've come to?"

"No," I replied. "What is it?"

"Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the conclusion that the first part of the Genesis in the English scriptures must be different than ours. I'm sure they think that the earth was created in six days and, on the seventh, Adam and Eve had tea. I believe it for an absolute fact."

The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe shock, was that concerning the nobility. On the morning of our first day afloat the passenger lists were distributed. Hephzibah was early on deck. Fortunately neither she nor I were in the least discomfited by the motion of the ship, then or at any time. We proved to be good sailors; Hephzibah declared it was in the blood.

"For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick," she announced, "would be a disgrace. Our men folks for four generations would turn over in their graves."

She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and I had the table to ourselves. She had the passenger list propped against the sugar bowl and was reading the names.

"My gracious, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "What, do you think! There are five 'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'! Just think of it! Where do you suppose they are?"

"In their berths, probably, at this hour," I answered.

"Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out. I'm goin' to see 'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all day."

I smiled. "I wouldn't do that, Hephzy," said I. "We can see them at lunch."

"Oh! O—Oh! And there's a Princess here! Princess B-e-r-g-e-n-s-t-e-i-n—Bergenstein. Princess Bergenstein. What do you suppose she's Princess of?"

"Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine," I answered. "Oh, I see! You've skipped a line, Hephzy. Bergenstein belongs to another person. The Princess's name is Berkovitchky. Russian or Polish, perhaps."

"I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her. I never expected to look at a live Princess in MY life."

We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to examine the table chart. Hephzibah made careful notes of the tables at which the knights and the lord and the Princess were seated and their locations. At lunch she consulted the notes.

"The lord sits right behind us at that little table there," she said, excitedly. "That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady Erkskine.' Now we must watch when they come in."

A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a middle-aged woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small table by an obsequious steward. Hephzy gasped.

"Why—why, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "That isn't the lord, is it? THAT?"

"I suppose it must be," I answered. When our own Steward came I asked him.

"Yes, sir," he answered, with unction. "Yes, sir, that is Lord and Lady Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir."

Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine. I gave our luncheon order, and the steward departed. Then her indignant disgust and disappointment burst forth.

"Well! well!" she exclaimed. "And that is a real live lord! That is! Why, Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in Bayport. If Ase could afford clothes like that he might be his twin brother. Well! I guess that's enough. I don't want to see that Princess any more. Just as like as not she'd look like Susanna Wixon."

Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other nationalities. Some of our own came in for comment quite as severe.

"Look at those girls at that table over there," she whispered. "The two in red, I mean. One of 'em has got a little flag pinned on her dress. What do you suppose that is for?"

I looked at the young ladies in red. They were vivacious damsels and their conversation and laughter were by no means subdued. A middle-aged man and woman and two young fellows were their table-mates and the group attracted a great deal of attention.

"What has she got that flag pinned on her for?" repeated Hephzy.

"She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I suppose," I answered. "She is evidently proud of her country."

"Humph! Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen to her the way we do. There's some exports it doesn't pay to advertise, I guess, and she and her sister are that kind. Every time they laugh I can see that Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a sensitive plant. I hope she don't think all American girls are like those two."

"She probably does."

"Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake. I might as well believe all Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I don't believe that, even if I do hail from Bayport."

The specimen was the "Duke of Labrador," who sauntered by, monocle in eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the "Oxford stoop" which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring. Hephzibah shook her head.

"I wish Toronto was further from home than it is," she declared. "But there! I shan't worry about him. I'll leave him for Lord Erkskine and his wife to be ashamed of. He's their countryman, or he hopes he is. I've got enough to do bein' ashamed of those two American girls."

It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had been so fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves. This was not the case. There were four seats at our table and, according to the chart of the dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a "Miss Rutledge of New York" and the other by "A. Carleton Heathcroft of London." Miss Rutledge we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was "hindisposed" and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added. Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction that all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as acquaintances, was quite satisfied. "Of course I'm sorry she isn't well," she confided to me "but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our table. I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her as I would to an ordinary person. I COULDN'T! All I should be able to think of was what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was actin' her parts. I expect I'm old-fashioned, but when I think of those girls in the pictures outside that theater—the one we didn't go to—I—well—mercy!"

The "pictures" were the posters advertising a popular musical comedy which Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the afternoon of our stay in New York. Hephzibah's shocked expression and my whispered advice had brought about a change of plans. We saw a perfectly respectable, though thrilling, melodrama instead. I might have relieved my relative's mind by assuring her that all actresses were not necessarily attired as "merry villagers," but the probable result of my assurance seemed scarcely worth the effort.

A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in a professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman, dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life in general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly accent. He favored us with his company during our first day afloat; after that we saw him amid the select group at that much sought—by some—center of shipboard prominence, "the Captain's table."

Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension and single eyeglass as much as I had expected. She explained her feeling in this way.

"I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that," she said. "And the way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was enough to squelch even an Angelina Phinney. But I didn't care so much. Anybody, even a body as green as I am, can see that he actually IS somebody when he's at home, not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad for our waiter's sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing bowed so low when he came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr. Heathcroft spoke to him. I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you' when I was told that the food was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten' was a nice word, but all these English folks say it. I heard that pretty English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly rotten mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet as she can be. Well, I'm learnin' fast, Hosy. I can see a woman smoke a cigarette now and not shiver—much. Old Bridget Doyle up in West Bayport, used to smoke a pipe and the whole town talked about it. She'd be right at home in that sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner, wouldn't she?"

My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have ended almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way. I was in the "Smoke-Room" after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a cigar and idly listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's run, that time-honored custom which helps the traveling gentleman of sporting proclivities to kill time and lose money. On board the "Plutonia," with its unusually large quota of millionaires and personages, the bidding was lively and the prices paid for favored numbers high. Needless to say I was not one of the bidders. My interest was merely casual.

The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when a voice at my elbow said:

"Five pounds."

I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft. His monocle was in his eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if he had been newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot. He nodded carelessly and I bowed in return.

"Five pounds," repeated Mr. Heathcroft.

The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his audience on to higher flights. The flights were made and my companion capped each with one more lofty. Eight, nine, ten pounds were bid. Heathcroft bid eleven. Someone at the opposite side of the room bid twelve. It seemed ridiculous to me. Possibly my face expressed my feeling; at any rate something caused the immaculate gentleman in the next chair to address me instead of the auctioneer.

"I say," he said, "that's running a bit high, isn't it?"

"It seems so to me," I replied. "The number is five hundred and eighty-six and I think we shall do better than that."

"Oh, do you! Really! And why do you think so, may I ask?"

"Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable wind."

"Oh, but you forget the fog. There's quite a bit of fog about us now, isn't there."

I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying "Isn't there." I can't, however; there is no use trying.

"It will amount to nothing," I answered. "The glass is high and there is no indication of bad weather. Our run this noon was five hundred and ninety-one, you remember."

"Yes. But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that."

"Why, not particularly good. We slowed down about midnight. There was a real fog then and the glass was low. The second officer told me it dropped very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running. For an hour between twelve and one we were making not much more than half our usual speed."

"Really! That's interesting. May I ask if you and the second officer are friends?"

"Scarcely that. He and I exchanged a few words on deck this morning, that's all."

"But he told you about the fog and the—what is it—the glass, and all that. Fancy! that's extremely odd. I'm acquainted with the captain in a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to say. And I assure you he doesn't tell us a word. And, by Jove, we cross-question him, too! Rather!"

I smiled. I could imagine the cross-questioning.

"I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal," I observed. "That's part of his job. The second officer meant to be, I have no doubt, but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested in ships and the sea. My father and grandfather, too, for that matter were seafaring men, both captains. That may have made the second officer more communicative. Not that he said anything of importance, of course."

Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested. He actually removed his eyeglass.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You know something about it, then. I thought it was extraordinary, but now I see. And you think our run will be better than five hundred and eighty?"

"It should be, unless there is a remarkable change. This ship makes over six hundred, day after day, in good weather. She should do at least six hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden change, as I said."

"But six hundred would be—it would be the high field, by Jove!"

"Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that. The numbers are very low to-night. Far too low, I should say."

Heathcroft was silent. The auctioneer, having forced the bid on number five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was imploring his hearers not to permit a certain winner to be sacrificed at this absurd figure.

"Fourteen pounds, gentlemen," he begged. "For the sake of the wife and children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the union jack,—DON'T hesitate—don't even stammer—below fourteen pounds."

He looked in our direction as he said it. Mr. Heathcroft made no sign. He produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my direction.

"Will you?" he inquired.

"No, thank you," I replied. "I will smoke a cigar, if you don't mind."

He did not appear to mind. He lighted his cigarette, readjusted his monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.

The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were gone. Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the "high field," that is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My companion suddenly came to life.

"Ten pounds," he called.

I started. "For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft," I protested, "don't let anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong."

He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.

"You may wish to bid yourself," he drawled. "Careless of me. So sorry. Shall I withdraw the bid?"

"No, no. I'm not going to bid. I only—"

"Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen," shouted the auctioneer. "Eleven pounds! It would be like robbing an orphan asylum. Do I hear twelve?"

He heard twelve immediately—from Mr. Heathcroft.

Thirteen pounds were bid. Evidently others shared my opinion concerning the value of the "high field." Heathcroft promptly raised it to fourteen. I ventured another protest. So far as effect was concerned I might as well have been talking to one of the smoke-stacks. The bidding was lively and lengthy. At last the "high field" went to Mr. A. Carleton Heathcroft for twenty-one pounds, approximately one hundred and five dollars. I thought it time for me to make my escape. I was wondering where I should hide next day, when the run was announced.

"Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure," drawled the fortunate bidder. "Won't you join me in a whisky and soda or something?"

I declined the whisky and soda.

"Sorry," said Mr. Heathcroft. "Jolly grateful for putting me right, Mr.—er—"

"Knowles is my name," I said. He might have remembered it; I remembered his perfectly.

"Of course—Knowles. Thank you so much, Knowles. Thank you and the second officer. Nothing like having professional information—eh, what? Rather!"

There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win. There was more than a doubt in mine. I told Hephzy of my experience when I joined her in the Lounge. My attempts to say "Really" and "Isn't it" and "Rather" in the Heathcroft manner and with the Heathcroft accent pleased her very much. As to the result of my unpremeditated "tip" she was quite indifferent.

"If he loses it will serve him good and right," she declared. "Gamblin's poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose."

"I shall," I observed. "I feel responsible in a way and I shall be sorry."

"'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy. That's what that blunderin' steward said when he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose. I told him he wasn't half as sorry as I was."

But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run posted on the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two. My "tip" had been a good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was richer by some seven hundred dollars, even after the expenses of treating the "smoke-room" and feeing the smoke-room steward had been deducted. I did not visit the smoke-room to share in the treat. I feared I might be expected to furnish more professional information. But that evening a bottle of vintage champagne was produced by our obsequious table steward. "With Mr. 'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir," announced the latter.

Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.

"WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?" she demanded.

"Why, drink it, I suppose," I answered. "It is the only thing we can do. We can't send it back."

"But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start in to be a drunkard at my age. I'll take the least little bit of a drop, just to see what it tastes like. I've read about champagne, just as I've read about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never expected to see either of 'em. Well there!" after a very small sip from the glass, "there's another pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and champagne tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink that sour stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder that Erkskine man is such a shriveled-up thing."

I glanced toward the captain's table. Mr. Heathcroft raised his glass. I bowed and raised mine. The group at that table, the captain included, were looking in my direction. I judged that my smoke-room acquaintance had told them of my wonderful "tip." I imagined I could see the sarcastic smile upon the captain's face. I did not care for that kind of celebrity.

But the affair had one quite unexpected result. The next forenoon as Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain himself, florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted before us.

"I believe your name is Knowles, sir," he said, raising his cap.

"It is," I replied. I wondered what in the world was coming next. Was he going to take me to task for talking with his second officer?

"Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger list," he went on. "Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?"

"Yes," I replied, more puzzled than ever.

"I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir. He was a seafaring man like myself. His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him he was commander of the bark 'Ranger.'"

"He was my father," I said.

Captain Stone extended his hand.

"Mr. Knowles," he declared, "this is a great pleasure, sir. I knew your father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our ships engaged in the Italian fruit trade. He was very kind to me at that time. I have never forgotten it. May I sit down?"

The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and he took it. I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time. The captain appeared delighted to meet the son of his old acquaintance. Father and he had met in Messina—Father's ship was in the fruit trade also at that time—and something or other he had done to help young Stone had made a great impression on the latter. I don't know what the something was, whether it was monetary help or assistance in getting out of a serious scrape; Stone did not tell me and I didn't ask. But, at any rate, the pair had become very friendly there and at subsequent meetings in the Mediterranean ports. The captain asked all sorts of questions about Father, his life, his family and his death aboard the sinking "Monarch of the Seas." Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars. She remembered them well.

Captain Stone nodded solemnly.

"That is the way the master of a ship should die," he declared. "Your father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one. He was my first American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of Yankees—if you'll excuse my calling them that, sir."

Hephzy had a comment to make.

"There are SOME pretty fair Yankees," she observed, drily. "ALL the good folks haven't moved back to England yet."

The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.

"Though two of the best are on their way," I added, with a wink at Hephzy. This attempt at humor was entirely lost. Our companion said he presumed I referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next him at table.

"And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join us," he went on. "I could easily arrange for two places."

I looked at Hephzy. Her face expressed decided disapproval and she shook her head.

"Thank you, Captain Stone," I said; "but we have a table to ourselves and are very comfortable. We should not think of troubling you to that extent."

He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure. We were firm in our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge. He declared his intention of seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to accompany us through the engine-rooms and the working portions of the ship whenever we wished, ordered the deck steward, who was all but standing on his head in obsequious desire to oblige, to take good care of us, shook hands once more, and went away. Hephzibah drew a long breath.

"My goodness!" she exclaimed; "sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen is all right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And they drink champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you, I'll stay in the henyard along with the everyday fowls."

"Odd that he should have known Father," I observed. "Well, I suppose the proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say."

"It's what I say, too," declared Hephzy, with emphasis. "Well, it's awful encouraging for us, isn't it."

"Encouraging? What do you mean?"

"Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that we shall run across him."

I suppressed a groan. "Hephzy," said I, "why on earth should the fact that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall meet a person we never knew at all?"

"Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet a child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy, I've had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it; that's what I think—we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and by. THEN you won't laugh."

"No, Hephzy," I admitted, resignedly, "I won't laugh then, I promise you. If I ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise you I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious, like the measles, and I'll send for a doctor."

The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came over to our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a sensation. Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's captain is the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now toadied to him as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is when afloat. His familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon Hephzy and me. Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening for the first time.

A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the "Stokers' Band" which was performing for the benefit of the second-class with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked him for the wine.

"Quite unnecessary, Knowles," he said. "Least I could do, it seems to me. I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of yours; I did really. Awfully obliged, and all that. You seem to have a wide acquaintance among the officers. That captain chap tells us he knew your father—the sailor one you told me of, you understand."

Having had but one father I understood perfectly. We chatted in a inconsequential way for a short time. In the course of our conversation I happened to mention that I wrote, professionally. To my surprise Heathcroft was impressed.

"Do you, really!" he exclaimed. "That's interesting, isn't it now! I have a cousin who writes. Don't know why she does it; she doesn't get her writings printed, but she keeps on. It is a habit of hers. Curious dissipation—eh, what? Does that—er—Miss—that companion of yours, write also?"

I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's bad habits.

"Extraordinary woman, isn't she," he said. "I met her just now, walking about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air. She said she wouldn't quarrel with me because of that. The more I took the better she would like it; she could spare about a gale and a quarter and not feel—What did she call it? Oh yes, 'scrimped.' What is 'scrimped,' may I ask?"

I explained the meaning of "scrimped." Heathcroft was much amused.

"It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there," he declared. "That was a clever way of putting it, wasn't it?"

"She is a clever woman," I said, shortly.

Heathcroft did not enthuse.

"Oh," he said dubiously. "A relative of yours, I suppose."

"A cousin, that's all."

"One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline toward eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think. I have an aunt down in Sussex, who is queer. A good sort, too, no end of money, a big place and all that, but odd. She and I get on well together—I am her pet, I suppose I may say—but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else in the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. Do you golf, Knowles?"

"I attempt something in that line. I doubt if my efforts should be called golf."

"It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it. If you are down in Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have you play an eighteen with me. Burglestone Bogs is the village. Anyone will direct you to the Manor. If I'm not there, introduce yourself to my aunt. Lady Kent Carey is the name. She'll be jolly glad to welcome you if you tell her you know me. I'm her sole interest in life, the greenhouses excepted, of course. Cultivating roses and rearing me are her hobbies."

I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would ever be put to shame by the brilliancy of my game. I thanked him, however. I was surprised at the invitation. I had been under the impression, derived from my reading, that the average Englishman required an acquaintance of several months before proffering hospitality. No doubt Mr. Heathcroft was not an average Englishman.

"Will you be in London long?" he asked. "I suppose not. You're probably off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to the other. Two hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's tomb, a Derby through the cathedral towns, and then the Channel boat, eh? That's the American way, isn't it?"

"It is not our way," I replied. "We have no itinerary. I don't know where we may go or how long we shall stay."

Evidently I rose again in his estimation.

"Have you picked your hotel in London?" he inquired.

"No. I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give along that line."

He reflected. "There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair," he said, after a moment. "A private sort of shop. I don't use it myself; generally put up at the club, I mean to say. But my aunt and my sisters do. They're quite mad about it. It is—Ah—Bancroft's—that's it, Bancroft's Hotel. I'll give you the address before I leave."

I thanked him again. He was certainly trying to be kind. No doubt the kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what he called my "professional information," but it was kindness all the same.

The first bugle for luncheon sounded. Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.

"I'll see you again, Knowles," he said, "and give you the hotel street and number and all that. Hope you'll like it. If you shouldn't the Langham is not bad—quiet and old-fashioned, but really very fair. And if you care for something more public and—Ah—American, there are always the Savoy and the Cecil. Here is my card. If I can be of any service to you while you are in town drop me a line at my clubs, either of them. I must be toddling. By, by."

He "toddled" and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.

Two days more and our voyage was at an end. We saw more of our friend the captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well. The former fulfilled his promise of showing us through the ship, and Hephzy and I, descending greasy iron stairways and twisting through narrow passages, saw great rooms full of mighty machinery, and a cavern where perspiring, grimy men, looking but half-human in the red light from the furnace mouths, toiled ceaselessly with pokers and shovels.

We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking out into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the shadows at the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the foremast, and the weird cry of "All's well" from the lookouts. This experience made a great impression on us both. Hephzy expressed my feeling exactly when she said in a hushed whisper:

"There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board a ship at sea. My father and your father and all our men-folks for ever so far back have heard that 'All's well'—yes, and called it, too, when they first went as sailors. Just think of it! Why Father was only sixteen when he shipped; just a boy, that's all. I've heard him say 'All's well' over and over again; 'twas a kind of byword with him. This whole thing seems like somethin' callin' to me out of the past and gone. Don't you feel it?"

I felt it, as she did. The black night, the quiet, the loneliness, the salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside, the high singsong wail from lookout to lookout—it WAS a voice from the past, the call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn, brave old Cape Codders to their descendants, reminding the latter of a dead and gone profession and of thousands of fine, old ships which had plowed the ocean in the days when "Plutonias" were unknown.

We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the promenade deck which followed. Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have made the acquaintance of most of the pretty girls on board, informed us in the intervals between a two-step and a tango, that he had been "dancing madly."

"You Americans are extraordinary people," he added. "Your dances are as extraordinary as your food. That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits near me at table, was indulging in—what do you call them?—oh, yes, griddle cakes—this morning. Begged me to try them. I declined. Horrid things they were. Round, like a—like a washing-flannel, and swimming in treacle. Frightful!"

"And that man," commented Hephzy, "eats cold toast and strawberry preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea. And he calls nice hot pancakes frightful!"

At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to be our landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted with farms and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone fort with its white-washed barrack buildings, the spires and chimneys of the village in the hollow—all these combined to make a picture which was homelike and yet not like home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.

We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags and bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat which lay alongside. Hephzy was nervous.

"They'll smash everything to pieces—they surely will!" she declared. "Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is liable to happen first. Mercy on us! Did you see that? That box hit the man right in the back!"

"It didn't hurt him," I said, reassuringly. "It was nothing but a hat-box."

"Hurt HIM—no! But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good. I thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've got some experts over here. Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY trunk—end over end, of course. Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in it, anyway. Josiah Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to his daughter-in-law every time he went to Boston. He had 'em in a box once and put the box on the seat alongside of him and a big fat woman came and sat—Oh! that was your trunk, Hosy! Did you hear it hit? I expect every one of those 'English Poets' went from top to bottom then, right through all your clothes. Never mind, I suppose it's all part of travelin'."

Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top coat, and hat at the back of his head, sauntered up. He was, for him, almost enthusiastic.

"Looking at the water, were you?" he queried. "Glorious color, isn't it. One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that anywhere but here at home."

Hephzy looked at the sea and sky. It was plain that she wished to admire, for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.

"Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be prettier?" she asked.

Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.

"Bluer?" he repeated. "My dear woman, there are no skies as blue as the English skies. They are quite celebrated—really."

He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of appreciation.

"He must be color-blind," I observed. Hephzy was more charitable.

"I guess likely everybody's home things are best," she said. "I suppose this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look bright and blue to him. We must make allowances, Hosy. He never saw an August mornin' at Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and the bay white and blue to the edge of all creation. That's been denied him. He means well, poor thing; he don't know any better."

An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier covered with substantial stone buildings. Uniformed custom officers and uniformed policemen stood in line as we came up the gang-plank. Behind them, funny little locomotives attached to queer cars which appeared to be all doors, puffed and panted.

Hephzibah looked about her.

"Yes," she said, with conviction. "I'm believin' it more and more all the time. It is England, just like the pictures. How many times I've seen engines like that in pictures, and cars like that, too. I never thought I'd ride in 'em. My goodness me? Hephzibah Jane Cahoon, you're in England—YOU are! You needn't be afraid to turn over for fear of wakin' up, either. You're awake and alive and in England! Hosy," with a sudden burst of exuberance, "hold on to me tight. I'm just as likely to wave my hat and hurrah as I am to do anything. Hold on to me—tight."

We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble. Our tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway journey to London. I secured a first-class compartment at the booking-office and a guard conducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.

Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.

"And now," said I, "for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!"

Hephzy shook her head.

"I'm thinkin' of it," she said. "London—the biggest city in the world! Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little Frank has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who knows? I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't be surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London; that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that."



CHAPTER VI

In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter

It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long train journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.

"Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted," declared Hephzy. "There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare land?"

"They haven't any," I answered. "Land is too valuable to waste. There's another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it."

Hephzy nodded. "Just exactly," she said. "Everything looks like the pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture. But it isn't—it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it."

We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began to string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under a great train shed—Paddington Station and London itself.

Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers not exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled and pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no one was interested in us at all, except the porters and the cabmen. I selected a red-faced chunky porter who was a decidedly able person, apparently capable of managing anything except the letter h. The acrobatics which he performed with that defenceless consonant were marvelous. I have said that I selected him; that he selected me would be nearer the truth.

"Cab, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said. "Leave that to me, sir. Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?"

I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be. I had read about them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and properly labeled. For the matter of that, all the vehicles in sight appeared to have four wheels. So I said, at a venture, that I thought an ordinary cab would do.

"Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir. Your boxes are in the luggage van, I suppose, sir."

I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I, in my ignorance, would have called a baggage car:

"Yes, sir," said the porter. "If the lidy will be good enough to wait 'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir."

Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I followed my guide to the "luggage van." This crowded car disgorged our two steamer trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a fellow-craftsman to help him, the trunks were dragged to the waiting cab.

I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.

"I saw one at last," she declared. "I'd about come to believe there wasn't such a thing, but there is; I just saw one."

"One—what?" I asked, puzzled.

"An Englishman with side-whiskers. They wasn't as big and long as those in the pictures, but they were side-whiskers. I feel better. When you've been brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em, it was kind of humiliatin' not to see one single set."

I paid my porters—I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I had given them altogether too much—and we climbed into the cab with our bags. The "boxes," or trunks, were on the driver's seat and on the roof.

"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.

I hesitated. Even at this late date I had not made up my mind exactly "where to." My decision was a hasty one.

"Why—er—to—to Bancroft's Hotel," I said. "Blithe Street, just off Piccadilly."

I think the driver was somewhat astonished. Very few of his American passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I imagine. However, his answer was prompt.

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said. The cab rolled out of the station.

"I suppose," said Hephzy, reflectively, "if you had told him or that porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have thanked you just the same and called you 'sir' four times besides."

"No doubt they would."

"Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would—thank you, sir. So this is London. It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston or New York so far."

But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New York hotel as anything could be. A short, quiet, eminently respectable street, leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on both sides, by three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of brick and stone. No signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring lights. Merely a gas lamp burning over the fanlight of a spotless white door, and the words "Bancroft's Hotel" in mosaic lettering set in a white stone slab in the pavement.

The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out of the window. The same thought was in both our minds.

"This can't be the place," said I.

"This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?" asked Hephzy.

The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in uniform hastened to the cab. Before he reached it I had seen the lettering in the pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances, we had reached our destination.

"This is it, Hephzy," I said. "Come."

The boy opened the cab door and we alighted. Then in the doorway of "Bancroft's" appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified person, also in uniform. This person wore short "mutton-chop" whiskers and had the air of a member of the Royal Family; that is to say, the air which a member of the Royal Family might be expected to have.

"Good evening, sir," said the personage, bowing respectfully. The bow was a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least, not familiar; a bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow which seemed to demand references, but was far from repellant or bullying. Altogether a wonderful bow.

"Good evening," said I. "This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

"I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible."

"Yes, sir. This way, sir, if you please. Richard," this to the boy and in a tone entirely different—the tone of a commanding officer to a private—"see to the gentleman's luggage. This way, sir; thank you, sir."

I hesitated. "The cabman has not been paid," I stammered. I was a trifle overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the "sir."

"I will attend to that, sir. If you will be good enough to come in, sir."

We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned, homelike and as spotless as the white door. Two more uniforms bowed before us.

"Thank you, sir," said the member of the Royal Family. It was with difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite welcome. His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had conferred a favor.

"I will speak to Mr. Jameson," he went on, with another bow. Then he left us.

"Is—is that Mr. Bancroft?" whispered Hephzy.

I shook my head. "It must be the Prince of Wales, at least," I whispered in return. "I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft."

It developed that I was right. Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of the hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of middle age. He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our wants, stated that he had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate us.

"Do you wish a sitting-room?" he asked.

I was not sure. I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so. I mentioned, as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended Bancroft's to me.

The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything. Mr. Jameson summoned the representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low tone. The representative—his name, I learned later, was Henry and he was butler and major-domo at Bancroft's—bowed once more. A few minutes later we were shown to an apartment on the second floor front, a room large, old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs, tables and a big, comfortable sofa. Sofa and easy-chairs were covered with figured, glazed chintz.

"Your sitting-room, sir," said Henry. "Your bedrooms open hoff it, sir. The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir. Richard and the porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes. Will you and the lady wish supper, sir? Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Will you require a fire, sir?"

The room was a trifle chilly. There was a small iron grate at its end, and a coal fire ready to kindle. I answered that a fire might be enjoyable.

"Yes, sir," said Henry. "Himmediately, sir."

Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter and plum cake before a snapping fire. George, the waiter, had brought us the tea and accessories and set the table; the chambermaid had prepared the bedrooms; Henry had supervised everything.

"Well," observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, "I feel better satisfied every minute. When we were in the hack—cab, I mean—I couldn't realize we weren't ridin' through an American city. The houses and sidewalks and everything—what I could see of 'em—looked so much like Boston that I was sort of disappointed. I wanted it to be more different, some way. But this IS different. This may be a hotel—I suppose likely 'tis—but it don't seem like one, does it? If it wasn't for the Henry and that Richard and that—what's his name? George—and all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the pictures look like those he has, and—and everything looks as stiff and starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a Henry. No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy," with a sudden burst of confidence, "it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If I hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought Henry was one sure. Do you really think it's right for me to call him by his Christian name? It seems sort of—sort of irreverent, somehow."

I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days at Bancroft's. If it were not for the fact that so many really important events and happenings remain to be described—if it were not that the most momentous event of my life, the event that was the beginning of the great change in that life—if that event were not so close at hand, I should be tempted to linger upon those first few days. They were strange and wonderful and funny to Hephzibah and me. The strangeness and the wonder wore off gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.

To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid who, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still occupied by a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot water and fill the tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny enough, Hephzibah's comments on the proceeding were funnier still.

"Do you mean to tell me," she demanded, "that that hussy was brazen enough to march right in here before you got up?"

"Yes," I said. "I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up."

"Well! I must say! Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-pot, same as she did to me?"

"Just the same."

"And did she pour it into that—that flat dishpan on the floor and tell you your 'bawth' was ready?"

"She did."

"Humph! Of all the—I hope she cleared out THEN?"

"She did."

"That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?"

"I tried."

"Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour it over me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up people?"

I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred the "dishpans."

We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and to eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a "grilled sole" for the first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as "fried flatfish" we liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon, to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do nothing. She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she received explained some of her puzzles.

"Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?" she observed, referring to the maid. "Eight shillin's—two dollars a week, that's what she gets. And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson can afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough to boil water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters—why in the world do they call women by their last names?—Peters, she's the maid, says it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where ignorance is bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but I wouldn't fetch and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body like me, for two dollars a week."