“Oh!” said Staniford softly. Then he added, with the tact of his sex, “Miss Blood, you mustn't take cold, sitting here with me. This wind is chilly. Shall I go below and get you some more wraps?” “No, thank you,” said Lydia; “I believe I will go down, now.” She went below to her room, and then came out into the cabin with some sewing at which she sat and stitched by the lamp. The captain was writing in his log-book; Dunham and Hicks were playing checkers together. Staniford, from a corner of a locker, looked musingly upon this curious family circle. It was not the first time that its occupations had struck him oddly. Sometimes when they were all there together, Dunham read aloud. Hicks knew tricks of legerdemain which he played cleverly. The captain told some very good stories, and led off in the laugh. Lydia always sewed and listened. She did not seem to find herself strangely placed, and her presence characterized all that was said and done with a charming innocence. As a bit of life, it was as pretty as it was quaint. “Really,” Staniford said to Dunham, as they turned in, that night, “she has domesticated us.” “Yes,” assented Dunham with enthusiasm; “isn't she a nice girl?” “She's intolerably passive. Or not passive, either. She says what she thinks, but she doesn't seem to have thought of many things. Did she ever tell you about her father?” “No,” said Dunham. “I mean about his dying of consumption?” “No, she never spoke of him to me. Was he--” “Um. It appears that we have been upon terms of confidence, then.” Staniford paused, with one boot in his hand. “I should never have thought it.” “What was her father?” asked Dunham. “Upon my word, I don't know. I didn't seem to get beyond elemental statements of intimate fact with her. He died in California, where she was born; and he always had a longing to go to Italy. That was rather pretty.” “It's very touching, I think.” “Yes, of course. We might fancy this about Lurella: that she has a sort of piety in visiting the scenes that her father wished to visit, and that--Well, anything is predicable of a girl who says so little and looks so much. She's certainly very handsome; and I'm bound to say that her room could not have been better than her company, so far.” X.