well-shaped features, combined to make up a beiug which came as near to the ideal as I thought possible. My observations were quickly cut short by her turning and dis appearing below, but in those few brief glances I had received an impression which was ineffaceable. On the first night out we encountered a light storm, and I at once succumbed to that ghastly malady common to a first ocean voyage, from which I did not recover till late the next day. 'Then, feeling that a breath of sea air would do me a bit of good, I picked up a Spanish novel which I had brought along and went up on deck. Dropping into the first vacant chair I came to, I settled myself to enjoy my book and the cool sea breeze, which was blowing in fitful gusts. But precious little reading was I destined to do, for just as I had become rightly interested in the opening chapter I heard an angry exclamation, and looking up I beheld a sheet of paper, driven by the wind, come scurrying toward me, pursued by my study of the day before. Her eyes were fixed on the run away paper, and rightly guessing that it belonged to her I picked it up after a few futile attempts to grasp it and handed it to her. “Thank you, senor,” she said; “ you are very kind.” “ Not at all,” I hastened to assure her. “Your very glance well repays me for the slight service I have rendered you. She gave me a sharp looking over, which I met with a smile, and then turned and recrossed to her seat. “ Gad!’.’ thought I, “now I’ve done it. I’m entirely too im pulsive; sorry I spoke. I do believe I’ve offended her, and I meant to pay her a compliment. I guess she isn’t used to such Americanisms. Well, it’s just my luck to have every pretty girl cut me dead; I guess I’m a sort of mild idiot. Sometime, maybe, I’ll learn to hold my tongue.” And I picked up my novel and left. As for the fair unknown, I saw her quite frequently. But as far as I could tell she knew no one on the vessel, and many times was I tempted to break over all rules of etiquette and talk to her. This I would undoubtedly have done had not a kind fate decreed it otherwise. I had often heard of the old quotation, “ It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good,” and I had always believed it; but on the second night out my faith in it was entirely broken. We were pretty far south by that time, and I was anxious to see a big The Free Lance, [March,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers