Little Miss Grouch: A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's Maiden Transatlantic VoyageAdams, Samuel Hopkins
General
Little Miss Grouch: A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's Maiden Transatlantic Voyage
Adams, Samuel Hopkins
Ocean travel -- Fiction
Never had she felt less sleepy. Within her was a terrifying and
quivering tumult. She closed her eyes upon the outer world, which seemed
now all comprised in one personality. Within the closed lids she had
shut the imprint of the tired, lean, alert, dependable face. Within the
doors of her heart, which she was now striving to close, was the memory
of his protective manliness, of his unobtrusive helpfulness, of the
tonic of his frank and healthy humor--and above all of the strength and
comfort of his arms as he had caught her up out of the flood. As she
mused, the slumber-god crept in behind those blue-veined shutters of
thought, and melted her memories into dreams.
While consciousness was still feebly efficient, but control had passed
from the surrendering mind, she stretched out a groping hand. The Tyro's
closed over it very gently. At the corner of her delicate mouth the
merest ghost of a smile flickered and passed. Little Miss Grouch went
deep into the land of dreams, with her knight keeping watch and ward
over her.
Came then the destroying ogre, in the form of the captain, and passed
on; came then the wicked fairy, in the person of Mrs. Charlton Denyse,
and passed on, not without some gnashing of metaphorical teeth (her own,
I regret to state, she had left in her berth); came also the god from
the machine, in the shape of Judge Willis Enderby, with his friend Dr.
Alderson, and paused near the group.
"Love," observed the jurist softly, "is nine tenths opportunity and the
rest importunity. I hope our young protégé doesn't forget that odd
tenth. It's important."
"It seems to me," observed his companion suspiciously, "that you boast
considerable wisdom about the tender passion."
The ablest honest lawyer in New York sighed. "I am old who once was
young, but _ego in Arcadia fui_ and I have not forgotten." Then the two
old friends passed on.
[Illustration: HER KNIGHT KEEPING WATCH OVER HER]
VII
Seventh day out.
This sea-life is too darned changeable for me.
You never know what next.
It's bad for the nerves--
Smith's Log.
Thus the Tyro, in much perturbation of spirit, at the end of a lonely
day. "_Varium et mutabile semper_," was written, however, not of the sea
but of woman. And it was of woman and woman's incomprehensibility that
the keeper of the private log was petulantly thinking when he made that
entry.
For, far from harrying him about the decks, Little Miss Grouch had now
withdrawn entirely from his ken. He had written her once, he had written
her twice; he had surreptitiously thrust a third note beneath her door.
No answer came to any of his communications. Being comparatively
innocent of the way of a maid with a man, the Tyro was discouraged. He
considered that he was not being fairly used. And he gloomed and moped
and was an object of private mirth to Judge Enderby.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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