"Have you asked the English girl?" suggested a tall, rawboned New
Englander.

"Which English girrl?" demanded the Scot.

"Listen to him--which! Why, that one over there, you owl."

The Scotchman's eyes followed the gesture toward a group of children
surrounding a tall girl who stood by the rail on the leeward side. She
was facing into the wind toward the smoking-room door.

"Eh, mon," said the Scot, "till now I'd only seen the back of yon young
woman," and he promptly strode down the deck to ask, and receive, the
promise of a song.

Stefan Byrd, after a silent breakfast eaten late to avoid his table
companions, had just come on deck. It had been misty earlier, but now the
sun was beginning to break through in sudden glints of brightness. The
deck was still damp, however, and the whole prospect seemed to the
emerging Stefan cheerless in the extreme. His eyes swept the gray,
huddled shapes upon the chairs, the knots of gossiping men, the clumsy,
tramping youths, with the same loathing that the whole voyage had
hitherto inspired in him. The forelocked Scot, tweed cap in hand, was
crossing the deck. "There goes the brute, busy with his infernal
concert," he thought, watching balefully. Then he actually seemed to
point, like a dog, limbs fixed, eyes set, his face, with its salient
nose, thrust forward.

The Scot was speaking to a tall, bareheaded girl, about whom half a dozen
nondescript children crowded. She was holding herself against the wind,