Star murmured, in a low tone, but with a thrill in her voice which told how she felt the words.

Again a sneering smile distorted the lips of her companion.

She saw it, and flushed a vivid crimson, and the tears sprang quickly to her eyes.

“Mamma used to repeat those words so often when she lay sick and dying,” she said, sadly. “I know that she looked forward to the ‘morning’ when she should be released from her suffering; but they never sounded so pleasantly to me as they do now on this beautiful morning after our night of terror.”

“Anything which was a source of comfort to your mother 17you doubtless treasure very tenderly,” kindly replied the gentleman, who was a gentleman, and felt sorry that his unbelief or skepticism should have brought a shadow upon that fair young face.

17

“There is the breakfast-bell,” he added, in a light tone, as it rang out its keen notes. “Are you hungry?”

“Indeed I am, sir,” Star answered, eagerly, adding, with a clear, sweet laugh that fell like music on his ear: “Eating has been an impossibility during the last few days, and I have considerable lost time to make up. That bell has a welcome sound.”

“Then take my arm, little girl, and we will go down together; the boat is not quite steady even yet.”

“Little girl!”

She flushed again, and shrugged her graceful shoulders.

Then she glanced up at him with a serio-comic air, and said, with a pretty pout:

“I am sixteen years old, Mr.——”

She could not finish, because she did not know his name.

He laughed.

“And maidens of sixteen don’t like to be called little girls, eh?” he said. “Well,” he continued, “I feel as if I am privileged to call you that, since I am nearly sixty, and my name is Jacob Rosevelt.”

Star stopped short and looked up at him in surprise.

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