are under cover so that the glare will not strain your
eyes, and we can keep dry while we watch the storms."

"How did you know about it all? One would think you had
crossed a dozen times, George."

"Oh, I've studied the whole thing up thoroughly," George
said, with a satisfied little nod. "I've had time
enough! Why, when I was in petticoats you used to tell
me you would buy a ship and we would sail away together.
You used to spoil all my school maps with red lines,
drawing our routes."

"Yes. And now we're going!" said Frances to herself.

He sat down beside her and they watched the unending
procession of passengers marching around the deck.
George called her attention by a wink to any picturesque
or queer figure that passed. He liked to watch her quiet
brown eyes gleam with fun. Nobody had such a keen sense
of the ridiculous as his mother. Sometimes, at the mere
remembrance of some absurd idea, she would go off into
soft silent paroxysms of laughter until the tears would
stream down her cheeks.

George was fond and proud of his childish little mother.
He had never known any body, he thought, so young or so
transparent. It was easily understood. She had married
at sixteen, and had been left a widow little more than a
year afterward. "And I," he used to think, "was born