The Kentons

the tumult that always attends a great liner's departure. At breakfast-time her mother came to her from one of the brief absences

she answered. "W

two hours ago, and the

lbow and stared at her. "And

. "What do you mean by my letting you? You knew that we were going to sa

h, dear! oh, dear!" She threw herself down in her berth and covered her face with the sheet, sobbing, while her mother stood by in an anguish

eated to come down to the steamer and see her off as Boyne had pretended. "Momma," she said, "I have got to leave these roses in here, whether Ellen lik

swered from under the sheet, "I don't mind the roses

elt that one good turn deserved another, and she answered: "All right; I will, Nell. Momma, you tell Boy

the sheet, "that momma would have your

the nerves from which they proceed. Mrs. Kenton promptly assented, in spite of the sulky reluctance which Lottie's blue eye

tie to dip a towel in water and give it to her. As she ba

ttie, unsparingly. "I ca

u," Ellen suggested, as if she

n the question. "Well, maybe that would be th

o to breakfast

ould not question her with any hope that the bad would not be made worse, and so she remained silent. Judge Kenton sat with his eyes fixed on his plate, where as yet the steward had put no breakfast for him; Boyne was su

" he said, wi

glance at a napkin on her right. The young man who sat next it said,

iently punished him for his temerity said, rathe

se for them before long," t

nd when the judge had read on it, "Rev. Hugh Breckon," he said that his name was Kenton, and he introduced the young man formally to his family. Mr. Breckon had a clean-shaven face, with an habitual smile curving into the cheeks from und

iends already-ever since we found ourselves room-mates," and but for us, as Lottie afterwards noted, they might never have kno

pinion was withheld from him by reason of his rashness in giving the facts away. In the electrical progress of their acquaintance she had begun walking up and down the promenad

"as soon as I HAVE any real opinion of you," and

and said, "If it hadn't been for your card, and the

I am, in a way. I oughtn't to be, of course, but if a

elf of the opening, "how you can get up and pray, S

r laugh, but not so gay, "Well,

read prayers," Lottie

age-if you think it one. I'm a sort of a

kind of Uni

versalists think God is too good to damn them, and the Unitarians think they are too good to be damned." Lottie shrank a little

ty. "Oh, I don't know," she said, with a littl

th an actor's profession than my own. Why," he added, as if

e clean-shaved; and your p

'm not an Englishman. I am a plain republi

if you thought such a t

Lottie could not make

ing over at what little was left of Long Island, and she said, ab

well of me for it, and I wish to report what I've been saying to your father, and let him judge me. I've heard that it's hard to live u

n of her or not, but she said, "Oh, it's a f

grave; but when he came to the joke,

question is whether I am good in repeating it to a young lady

instruction if she had got it," said the judge,

cult for any one t

tie could see that he was thinking

ct of comment with their contemporaries. "Well, I'll leave you to discuss it alone. I'm going to El

len. "My eldest daughter is something of an invalid, but I hope we shall have her on d

in a note of sympathetic inter

ified as wholly safe in view of Mr. Breckon's calling and his obvious delicacy of mind. It was something that such a person would understand, and Kenton was sure that he had not unduly praised the girl. A

from the place he had taken beside the judge, and got himself away to the other

ng kept to help take care of her, or keep her amused, as you call it. I will see that Ellen is kept amused without calling upon strangers." She intimated that if Kenton did not

words went. The girl smiled once or twice at what he was saying to her sister, and his glance kindled when it detected her smile. He might be

back to Lottie. After luncheon he walked with her, and their acquaintance made such

he begged her pardo

me a thing I tell you just what I think, and it seems to set you of

and I've got to expecting it of you, at any rate. But-but it's alway

ct it of you,

kon, in another gale

candid. But I should s

ad yet been able to do since the beginning of their acquaintance. He

s close a

all

kes me

tired now I wish

what I think about all sorts of things, and you haven'

do so. He answered, seriously: "I believe you are partly right. I'm afraid I haven't seemed quite fair. Couldn't you attribute my closeness to something beside

"Oh, pshaw!" She had hesit

t on which I can give you an opinion, I promise solem

hink it's very strange, to say the least, fo

o." He controlled himself so far as to say: "Now I think I've been pr

ill-one,"

with one. Why do you think a minister

you'd know. You wouldn't la

been a relief to laugh, and I've wanted to cry

ink you'd know as much as that," sa

people; and in the intervals, why shouldn't he be

ng more about the othe

lieves there is

ou?" she brok

he reasons I use against myself when I think of leaving off laughing. Now, Miss Kenton," he concluded, "for such a close and slippery nature, I think I've been pretty frank," and he looked round and down into

ng it with vague, dark eyes as it showed itself in the glass at which her sister stood taking out

r THAT young man from this time out. Of all the tiresome people, he

voice in sympathy with the slow movement of her la

at least, and that's just what Mr. Breckon isn't." She went at such length into his disabilities that by the time she returned to the climax with

?" asked Ellen. "The sh

id Lottie, cross

ankly provoked his confidence and severely snubbed it. He had left her brother very sea-sick in their state-room, and her mother was reported by her father to be feeling the motion too much to venture out. The judge was, in fact, the only person at table when Breckon sat down; but when he had accounted for his wife's absence, and confessed that he did not believe either of his daughters was coming, E

reakfast, she says. Is momm

salutation with the girl, had a gleeful moment in describing Boyne's revolt at the

her," she said, and she turned from him to give

n appetite, Ellen,"

at anything," she checked

ick now, I prophesy you won't be, Miss Kenton. It can'

?" she asked,

a gale, I believe. I don't

laugh, and said to her father, "Are

ou want to

back to Lottie. But I should think you w

ow of concern for some one else. "I suppose it's r

ep to the leeward. She doe

Ellen asked, without

believe that some boats are less liable to ship seas-to run into waves-tha

posed she had forgotten it in all its bearings,

y-four o

irst time," sh

k. "Not," he added, with an endeavor for lightness, "that I suppose you're going for pleasure altogether. Women, nowadays,

interposed, "will not do

r head over her

oing for purely selfish enjoyment. I should like to be

pitied as an invalid, was a sufferer from some spiritual blight more pathetic than broken health. He pulled his mind away from the conjecture that tempted it and went on: "One of the advantages of going over the fourth or fifth time is that you're relieved from a di

ut we don't mean to overwork ourselves even if we've come for a rest. I don't know," he added, "bu

e young man felt authorized to say, "Oh, so many of them know the la

so," the judge v

an with a nervous suddenness, "do you

ng with equal promptness

Italy, poppa?"

tervened, smiling. "You'd find it Pretty hot there now.

aid the judge, with latent pride in his ho

he boat goes right on

ut we could change. "Do you think your mother wou

aly better. She's read mor

h Republic," her

ut she's read m

an lakes wouldn't be impossible. And yo

said the judge to his daught

sure in the duplicity; for he divined that the father was seeking only to let

d, on reflection, he had not the wish to pluck out. He might come to know it, but he would not try to know it; if it offere

s responding to her frankness was concerned, been close. He relished the unsparing honesty with which she had denounced him, and though he did not yet know his outcast condition with relation to her, he could not think of her without a smile of wholly disinterested liking. He did not know, as a man of earlier date would have known, all that the little button in the judge's lapel meant; but he knew that it meant service in the civil war, a struggle which he vaguely and impersonally revered, though its details were of much the same dimness for him as those of the Revolution and the War of 1812. The modest distrust which had grown upon the bold self-confidence of Kenton's earlier manhood could not have been more tenderly and reverently imagined; and Breckon's conjecture of things suffered for love's sake against sense and conviction in him were his further tribute to a character which exi