WHEN the band ceased playing, Miss Landon’s father had closed his eyes and had doubtless forgotten that his daughter had mentioned the conductor of the snow-bound train in which they had once travelled. But she had not forgotten, and now sat musing on the past and dreaming of the future. The sea was dead calm, and but for the vibration of the ship, caused by the machinery, and the slight lifting and lowering of the huge vessel as she ploughed through the ocean, one might have fancied that she was riding at anchor. The sun shone dimly through an autumn haze. Here and there the curving spine of a leaping porpoise split the surface of the silver sea, that lay like a great drop of molten lead. Far out toward the banks a whale was spouting like a hose at a fire. Now the big liner turns from her path to nose about an old scow that is drifting, bottom side up, with the current of the sea. A half-dozen gulls with steady wing stand above the stern of the ship. Some of the passengers are walking, some are dozing, others are reading, and all are apparently perfectly contented. As the sun went down the sea came up, and the big ship began to roll. When it was dark, save for the stars that stood above the ship, she began to pitch. One by one the women left their places and went below. When the bugle sounded for dinner not all the men and a very few women sat down in the great dining-hall. The neglected tables groaned under the good things that were left untouched. The band played cheerily in the little bower above, while the white-gloved stewards hurried out with the empties, and came back with the nuts and pudding and electric ice-cream. Before the meal was over the ship was rolling so that they had to lash on the sideboards. Only one woman remained at the captain’s table. She was a good sailor. Presently the big ship lifted her nose until all the people held on to the tables, and then she gave a twist and came down on one corner. She went so low that the sea came up and wet all the windows. It reached up to the promenade deck, leaped to the bridge, over the ladies’ saloon, and tore away six yards of the canvas fence, behind which the captain stands. It came along the deck, a solid stream, two feet and a half deep. It gathered up all the steamer chairs and drove them in a drift against the fence that marks the line between the first and second class. The people, men and women, who had stayed upon deck, were washed along, and piled up among the chairs. Mr. Landon, who was a poor sailor, slid out of his chair that was lashed to a railing that ran along the wall, and went, half bent, head first, for the heavy fence that runs round the ship. He ran so fast, when the ship sat on edge, that he could not straighten up, and before any one could reach him his head hit the railing. He went down like a man under a sandbag, and then the flood came and heaped the company’s property and a lot of people on top of him. When the sea went down from the deck,