The girl's mirth faded. From behind the four a quiet tread drew near. From another quarter came two other steps, lighter yet more assertive. The one was John Courteney's; the two, that halted farther away, meant again the twins. "Well, captain?" mildly said the grandfather. "Well, commodore?" said the captain, declining his son's chair. "Oh, good!" cried Ramsey, and rose with her nurse. "I didn't know anybody but my father was called commodore!" "Yes," replied the captain, "my father too." "Where've you been?" asked the fearless girl. His answer was mainly to her mother: "I've been making myself acquainted in the ladies' cabin. This is no Hudson River boat, you know--whole trip in a day's jaunt." "Ah, 'tis a voyage!" said madame. "So it's well to know one's people," added he. He looked up into the night. "What a sky! Miss Ramsey, did you ever see, through a glass, the Golden Locks of Berenice?" "The gold--" she began eagerly--"no-o! What are the golden--?" But there she checked, fell upon old Joy, and laughed whimperingly, "That's a dig at my red hair!" One of the twins gravely accosted his mother, but she and the captain were laughing at Ramsey while the grandfather said: "My dear child, your hair is beautiful." With face still hid on Joy's bosom, the girl shuffled her feet, then turned upon the old man and playfully intoned: "I'm not a child!" "Ramsey!" said the mother, and "Missie!" said the nurse. "Hugh," said the captain, "suppose you take Miss Ramsey up to the pilot-house and show her the----" The girl laid a hand on his arm. "Do you want to tell mom-a something you don't want me to hear?" "Why--" began the captain, and laughed. "On second thought, no. I want to tell your mother and the commodore something before any one else can, and before I tell any one else; but you may hear it if----" "If I won't get frightened. Has anything happened to the boat?" "Ramsey!" "Missie!" lamented matron and servant again. "Mother," with much dignity pleaded the twins. "Oh, no," said the captain, "not to the boat." "I want to stay and hear it," whined Ramsey, jerking up and down. "I won't get scared." "'T'u'd be de fust time sence she wuz bawn ef she did," audibly mused the nurse, and Hugh said: "I believe that." The girl stared round at him and then back at his father, her eyes wide with merriment. "No Ramsey to the pilot-house with him if he can help it!" she managed to say, and fell over her mother and nurse, down into her chair and across its arm, her laughter jingling like a basket of glass rolling down-stairs. Suddenly she hearkened. The captain was speaking to her mother: "Must you reach Loui'ville as quickly as you can?" "Ah!--well? yes? we muz' do our possible. My 'usband he--Ramsey!" The girl had turned face down in a play of collapse. "Nobody," she piped, "finishes what he starts to tell!" "Ho!" playfully retorted the mother, "an' you muz' go?--cannot wait? Well, good night." But no one went.