going on the Dipsey because she would not let her husband go by
himself, she did so because she was ashamed to say that she was in
such sympathy with the great scientific movements of the day that
she thought it was her duty to associate herself with one of them;
but while she thought she was lying in the line of high principle,
she was in fact expressing the truthful affection of her
old-fashioned nature--a nature she was always endeavoring to keep
out of sight, but which from its dark corner ruled her life.

She had an old-fashioned temper, which delighted in
censoriousness. The more interest she took in anything, the more
alive was she to its defects. She tried to be a good member of
her church, but she said sharp things of the congregation.

No electrical illumination could brighten the soul of Mrs. Block.
She moved about the little vessel with a clouded countenance.
She was impressed with the feeling that something was wrong, even
now at the beginning, although of course she could not be expected
to know what it was.

At the bows, and in various places at the sides of the vessel,
and even in the bottom, were large plates of heavy glass, through
which the inmates could look out into the water, and there
streamed forward into the quiet depths of the ocean a great path
of light, proceeding from a powerful searchlight in the bow. By
this light any object in the water could be seen some time before
reaching it; but to guard more thoroughly against the most
dreaded obstacle they feared to meet--down-reaching masses of
ice--a hydraulic thermometer, mounted on a little submarine
vessel connected with the Dipsey by wires, preceded her a long