Ruth said sadly: “There’s been some mistake. Our grocery box can’t be found.” Down the two girls and the giant went to the regions behind the dining-saloon to open the provision-box whose contents had been Miss Mar’s daily solace. There, in the swaying dingy murk, where the figures of Chinamen flitted, they opened the padlocked box and drew forth jars of Liebig, crackers, cheese, and silver packets of tea. “Oh, it _is_ kind of you!” Ruth’s gentle eyes were shining. “She hasn’t had anything for forty-eight hours, but she’ll be able to eat _now_.” _Poor_ Mis’ Bumble Bee! “I’ll lend you my alcohol lamp,” said Hildegarde. “I make tea every afternoon when it isn’t too rough. Won’t you come and have some?” The wan little niece going off with her hands full, paused an instant. “If—if I’m able, thank you.” “You ought to be more on deck. Of course you’re ill if you stay down there.” “I couldn’t take care of them if I didn’t,” and she was gone. The next day the fat purser was so all-pervading that Hildegarde felt herself making up her mind that really something must be done. She had scant patience with girls who complained at this order of infliction. Her firm conviction, “It’s their own fault”; though just how the purser’s foolishness was hers she could not determine. The afternoon was wild and rough, the smoking-room, packed and noisy. The overflow of men, with a few very subdued-looking women, sat below in the “Ladies’ Saloon”—a feebly-lit, ill-smelling little room, where an aged upright piano kept company with a hurly-burly of freight and three rickety chairs. Hildegarde’s fortitude threatened to give way after two minutes of the foul, close air. But up on deck the purser! and not a soul beside, except the bean-feaster, Mr. Isaiah Joslin, trudging up and down in oilskins, and the arctic cap driven off the bridge by the inclement weather. He sat in the most sheltered corner of the upper deck, obviously asleep, with arms folded and head withdrawn into his collar. The wind rose and the rain swept down upon the place where Hildegarde and the giant (with intervals of purser) had spent the morning. Oh, where was that giant now? She moved her chair to the better shelter near the arctic cap. At least, the purser did it for her, and was altogether so oppressive with his poor little gallantries and what the giant called his “toothsome smile,” that Hildegarde felt, whatever the penalty of his worst displeasure, in another moment she would be doing something more drastic than throwing out broad hints which he either disregarded or affected to consider humorous. She wished now that before moving she had said something even he couldn’t misunderstand. With another man by it would make the purser mad with fury. In any case, hardly fair to subject him publicly to a snubbing as effectual as she saw was going to be necessary. The arctic cap, for all the seeming blindness and deafness of his hidden face, might be listening. So Miss Mar merely drew her tartan