and they gathered the old man up he was dead,--but he came to again. A thoughtful and sympathetic woman rushed down to the dining-saloon and broke the news of the accident to the handsome young woman who was smiling over a glass of champagne at the captain. “Oh! Miss Landon! yo’ father’s dead.” Miss Landon put down the glass and got to her feet. She swayed a bit, and the captain steadied her. “Is that true?” she asked, gazing at the woman. “Well, he was; he’s better now; he--” “Thank you. It was thoughtful of you to come and tell me.” With the help of the captain and the chief steward (for the ship was rolling) she passed out. She was very pale, but there was just a hint of a smile upon her handsome face. The sympathetic, thoughtful woman sank into a chair, and looked foolish. When the ship’s doctor had bathed the old gentleman’s face and whipped over the rent in his scalp, he was able to talk to his daughter. His sister, the girl’s aunt, was helplessly seasick, and if there is a time in a man’s life, or a woman’s life, when a man or a woman is utterly incapable of sympathy for any human being who is foolish enough to want to live, it is when a man or woman is helplessly seasick. “Papa was wholly unconscious for ten minutes, auntie,” said Kate. “Oh, how glorious! If I could only put this--umph! horrid--Oh! ship and this heaving, tossing sea, and every--umph! thing and everybody out of my mind, and then get out myself, for ten minutes, I’d strangle the doctor who brought me back to this miserable, howling, rolling, watery old world.” In spite of her troubles (she was not feeling any too fit herself) Miss Landon laughed at this pessimistic tirade from her usually even-tempered aunt. CHAPTER XXII THE NEW PRESIDENT THAT night Miss Landon lay in her narrow bed, made short-stops of her elbows, and listened to the lash and roar of the rolling sea. At times the ship sank so deep into the main that one would fancy the keel scraping the bottom of the Atlantic. Nowhere in this world does one feel one’s insignificance and utter helplessness more than at mid-ocean in such a sea. Miss Landon found herself thinking how helpless she would be in the world if that kind, indulgent father were to pass away. Half her fortune was invested in a railway along with the fortunes of friends and neighbors, who knew nothing about the business. Naturally enough her mind went back to her own experience on a mountain railroad, and to the handsome conductor. She went to sleep thinking of McGuire, dreamed of McGuire, and woke up with McGuire fresh in her mind, and marvelled at it. For three days and nights the sea rushed past the rolling ship, and Landon lay in a semi-sane condition. Finally, at dawn one day, the ship slowed down and picked up a pilot out of a small boat that was floundering in the ocean and apparently enjoying it. “I want to see one of your passengers, a Mr. Landon, before I go upon the bridge, captain,” said the man.