"I understand," said Jane. She spoke in a very low voice. "You don't know, Harriet," she said then, "what I felt on board the yacht. They let me on at once, of course, for the second mate saw me and sent a boat to the pier, and I was on deck with nothing to do only just to look at the sea and think. You must have all been in the water at the time, for there came up a cloud, and the sea got quite rough, and I heard the second mate say to one of the officers that there was a squall coming on. Oh! I was nearly mad!" "Yes; that was about the time," said Harriet, calmly. "It was a very fearful time. It was then, just then, that I was earning my happy, happy time with Ralph; my splendid future with all my educational expenses paid: and you, you silly Jane, were earning your five pounds. We were getting these things through our pain. I suppose it was worth it." "I don't know," said Jane, in a listless voice, "perhaps so." She got up as she spoke and walked to the other side of the deck. This conversation took place on Monday evening. It was overheard by no one. The other girls were absorbed in their own interests, and Ralph was with his father. Robina was reading by herself. The week on board the yacht had not been a success as far as she was concerned. Had she listened, as once before she was forced to listen to a conversation between Harriet and Jane, she might have made up her mind to a line of conduct which was now far from her thoughts. As Jane lay down in her little berth in her pretty state cabin on that last night on board the "Sea-Gull" she could not help thinking over again of Harriet's graphic narrative; and she could not help reflecting on her own most awful feelings, had anything really happened to Ralph. Had anything really happened! Poor Jane trembled from head to foot. She knew only too well what that "anything" would have been. There would no longer have been in this wide world a little boy called Ralph-- a little brown-eyed boy with brown hair, and the sweetest smile in the world, and the most gallant spirit. He would have gone away. No little school-mother would have been needed to look after him. Harriet herself might or might not be dead; but if Ralph had been drowned that time, poor little Jane felt that she would have gone mad. Five pounds! They were not so much after all. She felt dreadful: she could not sleep. In the visions of the night, ugly things seemed to come and visit her. She started up, pressing her hands to her eyes. Could she go on with this? Could she allow a girl like Harriet to be companion, friend, and to a certain extent protector of such a very precious little boy as Ralph. Oh! how in her heart of hearts Jane did admire Robina! How earnestly she wished that it had been her lot to have Robina as her friend!