"I'll go right down on the lower deck with you now." Fanny ran after
him, her little boot heels clicking excitedly on the hard floor. "The
steward has marked it all for us. I got him to, while I ran to find
Polly so as to engage the place," she added breathlessly.

"That's fine," said Jasper, a smile breaking over the gloom on his
face; "now we'll have a prime game, Miss Vanderburgh."

Fanny swallowed hard the lump in her throat, and tried to look
pleasant. "Do you go and collect the Griswolds," cried Jasper,
radiantly, "and I'll be back with Tom," and he plunged off. It was all
done in a minute. And the thing that had been worrying him--how to get
Tom into good shape, and to keep him there--seemed fixed in the best
way possible. But Tom wouldn't go. Nothing that Jasper could do or say
would move him out of the gloom into which he was cast, and at last
Jasper ran down for a hurried game with the party awaiting him, to whom
he explained matters in the best way he could.

At last, old Mr. Selwyn was able to emerge from his state-room. Mr.
King and he were the best of friends by this time, the former always,
when Polly read aloud, being one of the listeners. At all such hours,
indeed, and whenever Polly went to sit by the invalid, Phronsie would
curl up at Polly's side, and fondle the doll that Grandpapa gave her
last, which had the honour to take the European trip with the family.
Phronsie would smooth the little dress down carefully, and then with
her hand in Polly's, she would sit motionless till the reading was
over. Mamsie, whose fingers could not be idle, although the big mending
basket was left at home, would be over on the sofa, sewing busily; and
little Dr. Fisher would run in and out, and beaming at them all through
his spectacles, would cry cheerily, "Well, I declare, you have the most