"It did my husband," said Mrs. Noah. "When he heard that the boys were
sea-sick too, he actually laughed and began to get better right away.
There is really only one cure for the _mal de mer_, and that is the fun of
knowing that somebody else is suffering too. If some of you ladies would
kindly yield to the seductions of the sea, I think we could get this poor
girl on her feet in an instant."

Unfortunately for poor Ophelia, there was no immediate response to this
appeal, and the unhappy young woman was forced to suffer in solitude.

"We have no time for untimely diversions of this sort," snapped Xanthippe,
with a scornful glance at the suffering Ophelia, who, having retired to a
comfortable lounge at an end of the room, was evidently improving. "I have
no sympathy with this habit some of my sex seem to have acquired of
succumbing to an immediate sensation of this nature."

"I hope to be pardoned for interrupting," said Mrs. Noah, with a great
deal of firmness, "but I wish Mrs. Socrates to understand that it is
rather early in the voyage for her to lay down any such broad principle as
that, and for her own sake to-morrow, I think it would be well if she
withdrew the sentiment. There are certain things about a sea-voyage that
are more or less beyond the control of man or woman, and any one who
chides that poor suffering child on yonder sofa ought to be more confident
than Mrs. Socrates can possibly be that within an hour she will not be as
badly off. People who live in glass houses should not throw dice."

"I shall never yield to anything so undignified as seasickness, let me
tell you that," retorted Xanthippe. "Furthermore, the proverb is not as
the lady has quoted it. 'People who live in glass houses should not throw
stones' is the proper version."