perfervidly assured her that there was all the difference in the world,
she submitted and said she supposed she ought to be thankful that they,
had hit upon the right one. They had telegraphed for berths and taken
what was given them; their room seemed to be very nice.

"Oh," said Mrs. March, and her husband knew that she was saying it to
reconcile them to the inevitable, "all the rooms on the Norumbia are
nice. The only difference is that if they are on the south side you have
the sun."

"I'm not sure which is the south side," said the bride. "We seem to have
been going west ever since we started, and I feel as if we should reach
home in the morning if we had a good night. Is the ocean always so smooth
as this?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said Mrs. March. "It's never so smooth as this," and she
began to be outrageously authoritative about the ocean weather. She ended
by declaring that the June passages were always good, and that if the
ship kept a southerly course they would have no fogs and no icebergs. She
looked round, and caught her husband's eye. "What is it? Have I been
bragging? Well, you understand," she added to the bride, "I've only been
over once, a great while ago, and I don't really know anything about it,"
and they laughed together. "But I talked so much with people after we
decided to go, that I feel as if I had been a hundred times."

"I know," said the other lady, with caressing intelligence. "That is just
the way with--" She stopped, and looked at the young man whom the head
steward was bringing up to take the vacant place next to March. He came
forward, stuffing his cap into the pocket of his blue serge sack, and
smiled down on the company with such happiness in his gay eyes that March