Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1902-02-27

stern of the RdJestan, behind the smoking
room and out of sight of everyone; of
everyone except the firm of Arthur & Co.,
for those young partners now hung about
the stern and watched and whispered
They afterWard considered themselves
we'll rewarded for their pains.
In the afternoon Harold Baddington was
hurrying along the deck to get a rug and a
book for the girl he had fascinated, when he
saw Miss Buchanan standing by the ships
rail amidshipS. She glanced at him in a
way that she had not done, | think, even
once before during the voyage; in peculiar
way; a way you could not even mention in
court of law under the rules governing
evidence; and yet, it was a way which
might easily produce the most important
episode in human life. The difference
between it and the ordinary glance of a
woman was as great as that-and vet it
was 50 slight a difference as to be all but
indeScribabIe. Indeed, she might have been
barely conscious of her own act until she
saw its effect upon him, for he stopped, in
spite of his hurry and Iounged up to the rail
beside her. In five minutes he had told
her something of his great wealth, and she
was encouraging his mood with close atten-
ton and certain familiar and free line of
comment and by-play of words, of which
she proved herself an easy mistress.
Two hours later, the little Sem-motherlesS
maiden who had sent him for her book and
rug was posted thirty yards further along
the deck beside the same rail, looking now
into the sea and now at the merry couple,
with face so troubled that it could scarcely
be believed to be the same that she had
carried, radiant and glorious, only short
time before.
Were the ship cinematographed all the
way to Gibraltar, that same scene would be
repeated uninterruptedly to the end. There
would be variations, but onlV of minor
sort. Often Harold Baddington and Miss
Bucknam sat in their chairs close together
and only the backs of their heads visible,
at the far end of the little frequented hurri-
cane deck. Then the languiShng country
maid sat at the near end with her book
closed on her lap, stealing gIances in their
direction. Often, also, the picturesque pair
stood in the stern or at the rail, PLAYED at
quoltS together, or sat side by side where
the people were thickest on the main deck.
He was forever talking in a low tone she
was as constantly laughing, trfle loudly.
And always, like the Deaths head at a Ro.
man feast, or grim cartoon by Dore at the
end OF chapter, the country miss lurked
near - misery perSonitled, daily growing
more haggard-a spectacle to Wallen pity in
a Barye bronze.
Miss Bucknam still pursued her share of
the sports competitions, took her part in the
concerts and dances, and in every way kept
up her position as one of the charter mem
berS, 50 to speak, of the lively, club-like
company. Something different, however,
might have been noticed in her manner
toward the invalid missionary. She invited
less good counSeIing, and spoke of her
self faint little bit more unWorthily. Her
visits, too, We're fewer and shorter.
We only to follow your best i'm
pulses" the invalid said one day, when she
was at her favorite paStime of planning the
other young Woman's future; "pursue your
acquaintanceS on deck, take up music or
painting in London, for which YOU are in
cined, and keep in touch with these new
friends. Then if anything goes amiSS or
you need help, come to me, won't you, dear,
at the address have given you, our mis-
sionary headquarters? will see to it that
you get the money to come to me wherever
may be-"
"Ah," said Miss Buchanan, with some
thing too suggestive of a Softened SnarI,
you don't understand. Those women
on deck are like FreemaSonS. Some day
they will ask me for their password d-mV
pedigree, mean-or they'll get suspicious,
and then it'll all have been for nothing. |
tell you, it's no use. After we leave this
ship it will be best that you don't think any
more about me-"
She even made an effort to change her
relation toward Mrs. Knight. One dav,
after long ifts-d-tfts with Baddington, she