an American flag to hold; but Elise, not wishing to seem to slight the
French nation, gave him a silken tri-colour of France to hold in his
other paw. Apparently unprejudiced in his sympathies, Yankee Doodle held
both flags, and continued to wear his jolly and complacent grin.

It was great fun for the girls to arrange their stateroom. As they
expected to occupy it for the next ten days, they proceeded to make it
as homelike as possible. They both had so many cabin bags and wall
pockets and basket catchalls which had been parting gifts that it was
difficult to find wall space for them all. Patty was to occupy the lower
berth and Elise the wide and comfortable sofa. For they concluded they
could chatter better if on a level. This left the upper berth as a broad
shelf for books and magazines, boxes of candy, and all the odds and ends
of their belongings.

"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," said Patty, "to think we are already
miles away from land, and dancing away over this blue water!"

As Patty was standing on the sofa, with her head stuck out through the
porthole, Elise could not hear a word of this speech; so unless the
fishes were interested it was entirely lost. But this mattered little to
Patty, and soon she pulled her head in and made the same remark over
again.

"Well," said Elise, who was matter-of-fact, "when people take passage on
an ocean steamer they often expect to get a few miles away from land
after they start."

"Oh, Elise," cried Patty, "have you no imagination? Of course it isn't
wonderful to consider the FACT of our sailing out to sea, but the IDEA