wasn't a bit kind of you to bring me to such a horrid place. It was very
unkind; it was cru-el. I want to go back, mamma. Tell the captain to
take me back to the land. Mamma, why don't you speak to me? Oh, I am so
sick and so very un-happy. Don't you wish you were dead? I do!"

And then came another storm of sobs, but never a sound from Mrs. Ashe,
who, Katy suspected, was too ill to speak. She felt very sorry for poor
little Amy, raging there in her high berth like some imprisoned
creature, but she was powerless to help her. She could only resign
herself to her own discomforts, and try to believe that somehow,
sometime, this state of things must mend,--either they should all get to
land or all go to the bottom and be drowned, and at that moment she
didn't care very much which it turned out to be.

The gale increased as the day wore on, and the vessel pitched
dreadfully. Twice Katy was thrown out of her berth on the floor; then
the stewardess came and fixed a sort of movable side to the berth, which
held her in, but made her feel like a child fastened into a railed crib.
At intervals she could still hear Amy crying and scolding her mother,
and conjectured that they were having a dreadful time of it in the other
stateroom. It was all like a bad dream. "And they call this travelling
for pleasure!" thought poor Katy.

One droll thing happened in the course of the second night,--at least it
seemed droll afterward; at the time Katy was too uncomfortable to enjoy
it. Amid the rush of the wind, the creaking of the ship's timbers, and
the shrill buzz of the screw, she heard a sound of queer little
footsteps in the entry outside of her open door, hopping and leaping
together in an odd irregular way, like a regiment of mice or toy
soldiers. Nearer and nearer they came; and Katy opening her eyes saw a