everybody on shipboard, already, and they all like him."

The stewardess was fond of the girls, and in her frequent visits had brought them every bit of news she could pick up, to lighten their confinement. She appeared while they were conjecturing, and said,

"Aha! Well, aren't you?"

"Almost," said Faith, as both began telling the story of their package.

Martha appeared much interested, but there was a look on her honest face that seemed to say she was not so densely ignorant of the matter as she pretended to be, and, while she assisted them into their long, flannel-lined ulsters and close caps, for a visit to the upper deck, where she declared the fresh wind would blow their last qualms away, they tried to learn just what she did know, but without success. Giving it up, finally, Hope proposed that they wear the sea-biscuit as ornaments, and see who should look most conscious when they drew near.

"A good idea! And where is that box of ribbons? Let's find a pink and blue, if we can."

"Tell me where you put it and I'll look," said Martha, much amused, and, when found, she punched a hole through one corner of the pasty squares, and tied each to a button of the ulsters. Hope's was pink, and Faith's blue.

Thus equipped, she started them up the companion-way, and seeing they were reasonably firm on their feet, went about her business, chuckling to herself as if greatly enjoying something. As they appeared above, they received a merry greeting from their father, who sat chatting with Mr. Lawrence to leeward of a smokestack, which gave a grateful warmth, as the day was a typical November one, gray and chill.

Both gentlemen sprang up to offer chairs, and congratulate them upon their courage in venturing out, and they were barely seated, when up came Dwight, trying to keep under a most amazing grin that persisted in stretching his mouth from ear to ear.

"Well, this is good!" he cried, shaking hands with a nourish. "I knew, if you'd just make a try at it, you'd be all right. If everybody would stick it out and stay on deck, as I do, there'd be no such thing as seasickness."

"Oh, the conceit of him!" laughed his uncle. "Stick it out, indeed! Why, you don't know what it means, you healthy young rascal. You have the stomach of a goat!"

To divert attention, possibly, Dwight suddenly turned to the girls, and inspected them with apparent curiosity.

"You seem to be decorated, this afternoon," he remarked in a non-committal tone, "and got on your pink and blue ribbons, I declare!"

His gaze rested on the sea-biscuit, and he lowered his eyelids to hide the laugh behind them.

"You didn't know we had decorations on this ship?" asked Hope teasingly. "Only a few get them. They are for good conduct under trying conditions. We have been ill, but not disagreeably ill. There's a difference."

The gentlemen were looking at the painted squares, now, and her father said, "What's that nonsense, my dear? What are they, anyhow?"

"Just something the stormy petrels dropped through our porthole," said
Faith, gravely taking up the tale. "Aren't they pretty?"

"H'm! Quite so." Mr. Lawrence was also indulging in a long look. "Did a merman paint them for you? And what sea-king got up that poetry? It seems well selected, if not entirely original." He glanced at his nephew quizzically, and added, "I suppose the other name of that Freedom who shrieked was Dwight, wasn't it? Pretty well, sir, pretty well! I recognize the work. Your style is original, Mr. Artist Vanderhoff."

"And didn't you help him one bit, Mr. Lawrence?" asked Faith.

"Did not even know of it, Miss Hosmer."

"Then I call it a mighty smart performance!" cried Hope in a tone of finality which brought a hearty laugh from the group.

"Clever enough!" decided the captain, as he spelled out the twisted lines, and chuckled over them. "You're quite an artist, young man. I remember, a few years back, I had a whole crew of the long-haired profession aboard, and a jolly, turbulent set they were. They decorated the ship from stem to gudgeon in all sorts of unexpected places, and almost disorganized my Lascars, snatching them off duty to pose as models. I had to threaten to driven 'em below at the rope's end, and batten down the hatches, to bring them to reason. But they made fun for us the whole voyage, and I was sorry to see the last of them at Gibraltar."