"Oh, Helen! Go on. Don't let anything interrupt you."

"I won't. I realize that you ought to be told that I love you. I do. I love you. I'm twenty-three, and I never said the words to any one else, even though I'm an American girl. And I'll never speak them to any one but you. I'm sure of it now. But I wouldn't say it till I was quite, quite sure."

The captain came pacing down the deck leisurely. He lifted his hat as he pa.s.sed Payne and Miss Curtis.

"We shall be on our way in a few minutes," he said, agreeably. "I hope this young lady has not suffered any alarm."

Helen showed him a face on which anything was written rather than fear.

"The port shaft broke off somewhere near the truss-block at the mouth of the sleeve of the shaft, and the outer end of the shaft and the propeller dropped to the bottom of the sea. It's quite inexplicable, but I find in my experience that inexplicable things frequently happen.

We shall finish our run with the starboard shaft only, and shall be obliged to reduce our speed to an average of three hundred and sixty knots daily."

He repeated this in a voice of impersonal courtesy, and went on to the next group. Helen Curtis settled back in her chair and smiled up at her lover.

"We shall be at sea at least two days longer," he said, exultantly.

"Ah, what shall we do to pa.s.s the time?" she interrupted, with mocking coquetry.

"Chug-chug, chug-chug!"

It was the liner.

"Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears To-day of past Regret and future Fears--"

This was Omar, but Miss Curtis would not listen.

"I've an aversion to your eloquent old heathen," she pleaded. "You must not quote him, really."

"If you insist, I'll refrain. Can't I even quote 'A book of verses underneath the bough--'"

"Oh, not on any account! That least of all."

"You don't want me to be hackneyed? Well, I'll be perfectly original. I know one thing I can say which will always sound mysterious and marvellous!"

"Say it, say it!" she commanded, imperiously, knowing quite well what it was.

So he said it, and the two sat and looked off across the darkened water and at the pale, reluctant stars, beholding, for that night at least, the pa.s.sionate inner sense of the universe. They said nothing more.

But as for the liner, it continued with its emphatic reiteration.

THE MINISTER

ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL

Mrs. Leah Bloodgood walked heavily, without the painstaking little springy leaps she usually adopted as an offset to her stoutness. She mounted Cornelia Opp's door-steps with an air of gloomy abstraction that sat uneasily on the plump terraces of her face as if at any moment it might slide off. It slid off now at sight of Cornelia Opp's serene, sweet face.

"My gracious! Cornelia, is this your house?" laughed Mrs. Bloodgood, pantingly. "Here I thought I was going up Marilla Merritt's steps! You don't mean to tell me that I turned into Ridgway Street instead of Penn?"

"This isn't Penn Street," smiled Cornelia Opp. She had flung the door wide with a gesture of welcome.

"No--mercy, no, I can't come in!" panted the woman on the steps. "I've got to see Marilla Merritt, right off. When I come calling on _you_, Cornelia, I want my mind easy so we can have a good time."

"Poor Mrs. Merritt!"

"Well, Marilla ought to suffer if I do--she's on the Suffering Committee! Good-by, Cornelia. Don't you go and tell anybody how absent-minded I was. They'll say it's catching."

"It's the minister, then," mused Cornelia in the doorway, watching the stout figure go down the street. "Now what has the poor man been doing this time?" A gentle pity grew in her beautiful gray eyes. It was so hard on ministers to be all alone in the world, especially certain kinds of ministers. No matter how long-suffering Suffering Committees might be, they could not make allowances _enough_. "Poor man! Well, the Lord's on his side," smiled in the doorway Cornelia Opp.

Marilla Merritt was not like Mrs. Leah Bloodgood. Marilla was little where Leah was big, and nothing daunted Marilla. She was shaking a rug out on her sunny piazza, and descried the toiling figure while it was yet afar off.

"There's Leah Bloodgood coming, or my name's Sarah! _What_ is Leah Bloodgood out this time of day for, with the minister's dinner to get?

Something is up." She waved the rug gayly. "Mis' Merritt isn't at home!"

she called; "she's out--on the door-steps shaking rugs! Leah Bloodgood,"

as the figure drew near, "you look all tuckered out! Come in quick and sit down. Don't try to talk. You needn't tell me something's up--just say _what_. Has that blessed man been--"

"Yes, he has!" panted the caller, vindictively. It is harder to be long-suffering when one is out of breath. "You listen to this. I've brought his letter to read to you."

"His letter!" Marilla could not have been much more astonished if the other had taken the minister himself out of her dangling black bag.

"Yes; it came this morn--Mercy! Marilla, don't look so amazed! Didn't you know he'd gone away on his vacation? He forgot it was next month instead of this, and I found him packing his things, and hadn't the heart to tell him. I thought a man with a pleased look like that on his face better _go_,--but, mercy! didn't I send you word? It _is_ catching.

I shall be bad as he is."

"Good as he is, do you mean? Don't worry about being that!" laughed little Marilla Merritt. "Well, I'm glad he's gone, dear man."

"You won't be glad long, 'dear man'! Here's his letter. Take a long breath before you read it. I suppose I ought to prepare you, but I want you see how I felt."

"I might count ten first," deliberated smiling Marilla, fingering the white envelope with a certain tenderness. A certain tenderness and the minister went together with them all. "But, no, I'm going to sail right in."

"Take your own risks, of course, but my advice is to reef all your main--er--jibsails first," Mrs. Leah Bloodgood wearily murmured. "You'll find the sea choppy."

"'Dear Sister Bloodgood,'" read Marilla, aloud, with reckless glibness, "'Will you be so kind as to send me my best suit? I am going to marry my old friend whom I have met here after twenty years. The wedding will take place next Wednesday morn--'

"_What!_"

"Read on," groaned Mrs. Bloodgood. "He says the fishing's excellent."

"I should say so! And that's what he's caught! Leah Bloodgood, what did you ever let him go away for without a body-guard? That poor dear, innocent, kind-hearted man, to go and fall among--among _thieves_ like that!"

"He's just absent-minded enough to go and do it himself. I don't suppose we ought to blame _them_. Read on."

"'Next Wednesday morning, at ten o'clock,'" moaned little Marilla, glibness all gone. "'It would be most embarra.s.sing to do so in these clothes, as I am sure you will see, dear sister. Kindly see that my best white tie is included. I would not wish to be unbecomingly attired on so joyous an occasion. She is a widow with five chil--'"

"Mercy! don't faint away! Where's your fans? Didn't I tell you there were breakers ahead? I don't wonder you're all broken up! Give it to me; I'll read the rest. M--m--m, 'joyous occasion'--'five children'--'she is a widow with five children, all of them most lovable little creatures.

You know my fondness for children. I have been greatly benefited by my sojourn in this lovely spot. I cannot thank you too warmly for recommending it. I find the fish--'"