"You here?" she said. "I thought you had sailed in the Russia! Bessie
told me you were to go then."

"Did she know," I asked, "that _you_ were going by this steamer?"

On my life, never was gallantry farther from my thoughts: my question
concerned Bessie alone, but Fanny apparently took it as a compliment,
and looked up gayly: "Oh yes: that was fixed months ago. I told her
about it at Lenox."

"And did she tell you something else?" I asked sharply.

"Oh yes. I was very glad to hear of your good prospect. Do be
congratulated, won't you?"

Rather an odd way to put it, thought I, but it is Fanny Meyrick's way.
"Good prospect!" Heavens! was that the term to apply to my engagement
with Bessie?

I should have insisted on a distincter utterance and a more flattering
expression of the situation had it been any other woman. But a
lingering suspicion that perhaps the subject was a distasteful one to
Fanny Meyrick made me pause, and a few moments after, as some one else
joined her, I left her and went to the smokestack for my cigar.

It was impossible, in the daily monotony of ship-life, to avoid
altogether the young lady whom Fate had thrown in my way. She was a
most provokingly good sailor, too. Other women stayed below or were
carried in limp bundles to the deck at noon; but Fanny, perfectly
poised, with the steady glow in her cheek, was always ready to amuse