Mrs. Crawford tried to make Mr. Glaston equally interested in her protégée, but she was scarcely successful. “How brave it was in the dear child, was it not, Mr. Glaston?” she asked. “Just imagine her glancing casually out of the port--thinking, it maybe, of her father, who is perhaps dying at the Cape”--the good lady felt that this bit of poetical pathos might work wonders with Mr. Glaston--“and then,” she continued, “fancy her seeing that terrible, ghastly thing in the water beneath her! What must her feelings have been as she rushed on deck and gave the alarm that caused that poor wretch to be saved! Wonderful, is it not?” But Mr. Glaston's face was quite devoid of expression on hearing this powerful narrative. The introduction of the pathos even did not make him wince; and there was a considerable pause before he said the few words that he did. “Poor child,” he murmured. “Poor child. It was very melodramatic--terribly melodramatic; but she is still young, her taste is--ah--plastic. At least I hope so.” Mrs. Crawford began to feel that, after all, it was something to have gained this expression of hope from Mr. Glaston, though her warmth of feeling did undoubtedly receive a chill from his manner. She did not reflect that there is a certain etiquette to be observed in the saving of the bodies as well as the souls of people, and that the aesthetic element, in the opinion of some people, should enter largely into every scheme of salvation, corporeal as well as spiritual. The doctor was sitting with Major Crawford when the lady joined them a few minutes after her conversation with Mr. Glaston, and never had Mrs. Crawford fancied that her husband's old friend could talk in such an affectionate way as he now did about the rescued man. She could almost bring herself to believe that she saw the tears of emotion in his eyes as he detailed the circumstances of the man's resuscitation. The doctor felt personally obliged to him for his handsome behaviour in bearing such testimony to the skill of his resuscitator. When the lady spoke of the possibilities of a relapse, the doctor's eyes glistened at first, but under the influence of maturer thought, he sighed and shook his head. No, he knew that there are limits to the generosity of even a half-strangled man--a relapse was too much to hope for; but the doctor felt at that instant that if this “case” should see its way to a relapse, and subsequently to submit to be restored, it would place itself under a lasting obligation to its physician. Surely, thought Mrs. Crawford, when the doctor talks of the stranger with such enthusiasm he will go into raptures about Daireen; so she quietly alluded to the girl's achievement. But the doctor could see no reason for becoming ecstatic about Miss Gerald. Five minutes with the smelling-bottle had restored her to consciousness. “Quite a trifle--overstrung nerves, you know,” he said, as he lit another cheroot.