A Bookful of Girls. Fuller Anna

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      “Look here, Miss Blythe,” the poet protested, “you must not flatter a modest man like that. My daughter would say you were turning my head.”

      “Oh, I rather think your daughter knows that it’s not the kind of head to be turned,” Blythe answered easily. She was beginning to feel as if she had known this famous personage all her life.

      “I shall tell her that,” said he.

      Presently one-bell sounded a faint tinkle far below, and the big megaphone inquired whether they wanted to come down, and was assured that they did not. And all the while during their voyage through the air, which was prolonged for another half-hour, the two good comrades were weaving romances about the little girl; and with a curious confidence, as if, forsooth, they could conjure up what fortunes they would out of that vast horizon toward which the good ship was bearing them on.

      At last the time came for them to go below, and they reluctantly signalled to the sailors, grouped about the deck in patient expectation. Upon which the windlass was set going, and slowly and creakingly the “crow’s nest” was lowered from its airy height.

      The two aëronauts found the steerage still populous with queer figures, and the atmosphere seemed more unsavoury than ever after their sojourn among the upper airs. To their disappointment, however, the woman and her Signorina were nowhere to be seen. Blythe and Mr. Grey looked for them in every corner of the deck, but no trace of them was to be found, and Blythe mounted the gangway to their own deck with much of the reluctance which she often felt in submitting to an interruption in a serial story.

      They found Mrs. Halliday amusing herself with a glass of cracked ice, giving casual attention the while to a very long story told by a garrulous fellow-passenger in a wadded hood.

      “Oh, Mamma,” Blythe cried, perching upon the extension foot of her mother’s chair, “why didn’t you and Mr. DeWitt stay longer? And how did it happen that nobody else got wind of it? I don’t believe a single person knows what we’ve been about! And oh! we have had such a glorious time! It was like being a bird! Only that little girl in the steerage oughtn’t to be there, and Mr. Grey and I are going to see what can be done about it, and–”

      The wadded hood had fallen silent, and now its wearer rose, with an air of resignation, and carried her tale to another listener, while Mr. Grey also moved away, leaving Blythe to tell her own story.

      They were great friends, Mrs. Halliday and this only child of hers, and well they might be; for, as Blythe had informed Mr. Grey early in their acquaintance; “Mamma and I are all there are of us.”

      As she sat beside this best of friends, – having dropped into the chair left vacant by the wadded hood, – Blythe lived over again every experience and sensation of that eventful afternoon, and with the delightful sense of sharing it with somebody who understood. And, since the most abiding impression of all had been her solicitude for the little steerage passenger, she found no difficulty in arousing her mother to an almost equal interest in the child’s fate.

      And presently, when the cornet player passed them, with the air of short-lived importance which comes to a ship’s cornet three times a day, and, stationing himself well aft, played the cheerful little tune which heralds the approaching dinner-hour, Blythe slipped her hand into her mother’s and said:

      “We’ll do something about that little girl; won’t us, Mumsey?”

      Upon which Mrs. Halliday, rising, and patting the rosy cheek which she used to call the “apple of her eye,” said:

      “I shouldn’t wonder if us did, Blythe.”

      CHAPTER II

      THE LITTLE SIGNORINA

      Blythe lay awake a long time that night, thinking, not of the bridge nor of the “crow’s nest,” not of the Captain nor of the supposed Hugh Dalton, but of the child in the steerage. How stifling it must be down there to-night! It was hot and airless enough here, where Blythe had a stateroom to herself, – separated from her mother’s by a narrow passageway, and where the port-holes had been open all day. Now, to be sure, they were closed; for the sea was rising, and already the spray dashed against the thick glass. Oh, how must it be in the steerage! And how did it happen that that nice woman had been obliged to take her little Signorina in such squalid fashion to la bella Italia?

      Blythe fell asleep with the sound of creaking timbers in her ears, as the good ship strained against the rising sea, and when the clear note of the cornet, playing the morning hymn, roused her from her dreams, the roaring of wind and waves sent her thoughts with a shock of pity to the little steerage passenger shut up below. For with such a sea as this the waves must be sweeping the lower deck, and there could be no release for the poor little prisoner.

      “Vhy you not report that veather from the lookout?” the Captain asked with mock severity as Blythe appeared at the breakfast table.

      The racks were on, and the knives and forks had begun their time-honoured minuet within their funny little fences. The amateur “lookout” glanced across the table at her friend and ally the poet, who nodded encouragingly as she answered:

      “Oh, we knew the Captain knew all about it!”

      “You think de Capitän know pretty much eferything, wie es scheint!” was the reply, uttered in so deep a guttural that Blythe knew the old Viking did not take very seriously the “bit of weather” that seemed to her so violent. In fact, he owned as much before he had finished his second cup of coffee.

      Yet when she came up the companionway after breakfast, she found a stout rope stretched across the deck from stanchion to stanchion to hold on by, the steamer chairs all tied fast to the rail that runs around the deckhouse, and every preparation made for rough weather.

      It was not what a sailor would have called a storm, but the sea was changed enough from the smiling calm of yesterday. Not many passengers were on deck, half a dozen, only, reclining in their chairs in the lee of the deckhouse, close reefed in their heavy wraps; while here and there a pair of indefatigable promenaders lurched and slid along the heaving deck arm in arm, or clung to any chance support in a desperate effort to keep their footing.

      Blythe had to buffet her way lustily as she turned a corner to windward. Holding her golf-cape close about her and jamming her felt hat well down on her head, she made her way to the narrow passageway forward of the wheel-house where one looks down into the steerage. The waves were dashing across the deck, which was deserted excepting for one or two dark-browed men crouched under shelter of the forecastle.

      There was a light, drizzling rain, and now and then the spray struck against her face. Blythe looked up at the “crow’s nest,” which was describing strange geometrical figures against the sky. The lookouts in their oil-coats did not seem in the least to mind their erratic passage through space. She wished it were eight-bells and time for them to change watch; it was always such fun to see them running up the ladder, hand over hand, their quick, monkey-like figures silhouetted against the sky.

      How nobly the great ship forged ahead against an angry sea, climbing now to the crest of a big wave, and giving a long, shuddering shake of determination before plunging down into a black, swirling hollow! And how the wind and the waters bellowed together!

      The Captain was on the bridge in his rubber coat and sou’-wester. He had said this would not last long, and he had stopped for a second cup of coffee before leaving the table. All the same, Blythe would not have ventured to accost him now, even if he had passed her way.

      Presently she returned under СКАЧАТЬ