"Dear boy!" said Miss Meechim, "how lovely he is to me. He would much rather spend his time with the men in the smoking and reading room, but he has always been just so; let me express a wish and he flies to execute it. He knows that I wouldn't have Dorothy marry for all the world, and had it not been for his invaluable help I fear that she would have fallen a prey to some man before this." "She is a pretty girl," sez I, "pretty as a pink rosy." "Yes," sez she, "she is a sweet girl and as good as she is beautiful." [Illustration: There wuz the usual variety of people on the ship.--Page 84.] There was the usual variety of people on the ship. The rich family travelin' with children and servants and unlimited baggage; the party of school girls with the slim talkative teacher in spectacles, tellin' 'em all the pints of interest, and stuffin' 'em with knowledge gradual but constant; the stiddy goin' business men and the fashionable ones; the married flirt and the newly married bride and husband, sheepish lookin' but happy; old wimmen and young ones; young men and old ones; the sick passenger confined to his bed, but devourin' more food than any two well ones--seven meals a day have I seen carried into that room by the steward, while a voice weak but onwaverin' would call for more. There wuz a opera singer, a evangelist, an English nobleman, and a party of colored singers who made the night beautiful sometimes with their weird pathetic melodies. There wuz two missionaries on board, one the Rev. Dr. Wessel, real dignified actin' and lookin'--he wuz goin' out as a missionary to China, and a young lady going out as a missionary to Africa, Evangeline Noble--she wuz a member of some kind of a sisterhood, so she wuz called Sister Evangeline. I sot a sight of store by her the first time I laid eyes on her. Anybody could see that she wuz one of the Lord's anointed, and like our cousin John Richard, who went out as a missionary to Africa several years ago, she only wanted the Lord's will pinted out to her to foller it to the death if necessary. Livin' so nigh to the Kingdom as she did she couldn't help its breezes fannin' her tired forehead occasionally, and the angels' songs and the sound of the still waters from reachin' her soul. She had left a luxurious home, all her loved ones, a host of friends, and wuz goin' out to face certain hardships, and probable sickness and death amongst a strange half savage people, and yet she had about the happiest face I ever saw. His peace wuz writ down on her brow. Her Lord journeyed with her and told her from day to day what he wanted her to do. After we got well acquainted she told me that ever since her conversion there were times when she became unconscious to things on earth, but her soul seemed to be ketched up to some other realm, where He, who wuz her constant helper and guide, told her what to do. I told Josiah about it, and he sez: