And then the revulsion of feeling when we found the cosiest of homes awaiting us! The hearty welcome of Eggert, the quarantine master and lighthouse keeper; the motherly smile of his wife; the cheery welcome of his daughter, Thyra; the bright little faces of Thorwald, his son, and of the baby, Ingeborg; even the rough growl of "Laps," the Danish hound, had no surliness about it. Then the comfortable beds in the little rooms, curtained from all obnoxious insects; the five o'clock sea baths in the morning, inside the high station fence that we must not pass; the meals an epicure need not have scoffed at; our first acquaintance with a dozen varieties of the luscious fish that abound in that part of the Caribbean. I remembered them all, as if it were yesterday, and at this juncture that meant but one thing: I must see St. Thomas again, if only to determine whether that fortnight was a dream or a reality. The craze which this decision inspired brought to my mind the fact that I was still liable to excitements from which I must free myself. The great desideratum for which I must strive above all things was repose. It was mere suicide to go wild over everything that happened to please me for the moment. The chance was more than even that if my feelings ran away with me over the delights of the Antilles I would awake the next morning with an aversion to that part of the world. It was one of the penalties of my illness that the pendulum of a wish could not swing violently in one direction without swinging just as far in the other. I was afraid this would be the result in the present instance; and I sent for a ticket to Koster & Bial's, while I went to take my dinner at the Club, in order to get a diversion that would be effective. Among the entertainments presented at the great Vaudeville house that evening was the startling sensation known as "Charmion," and I was not sorry to see it, even though I had to hold my breath during part of the exhibition. At the risk of relating what a large number of readers must already know, I will describe briefly the act given by the young woman appearing under that title. When the curtain rose nothing was visible except a trapeze about twenty feet above the stage, and a rope hanging loosely beside it. Presently there entered a woman in full street costume, who inserted one hand nonchalantly in a ring at the end of the rope and was drawn lightly to the trapeze. Here she sat comfortably for an instant; and then, as if by accident, fell backward and hung head down by one leg, bent at the knee.