"This was one of the times when I had both sides of the wall in review; she did not. Her heart and mind were on other things. No, nothing that you think, old man; not another Christine--I left all that behind me; not anybody in particular, really; just a girl I met on board. There were a dozen others as pretty--prettier. Our steamer chairs happened to come together, that was all. We were but two days out, and her roses were still fresh--big red ones that some of her friends had sent her. They lay in her lap over her steamer rug. I picked them up for her when they dropped to the deck, and so the acquaintance began. "Such a happy girl, with a fresh, sunburnt skin, and strong chest, and capable, earnest eyes; no nonsense about her, no coquetry." Mac hesitated for an instant and a look of peculiar tenderness came into his face--one I always remembered. Then he went on: "Just a plain, straightforward American girl, with a good mother at home and a matter-of-fact father who had sent her abroad with an aunt who was flat on her back in her cabin most of the time; she herself looked as if she had never known a day's sickness in her life. This was her first trip abroad. Half a dozen young men and as many young girls had come to see her off, and her share of the flowers sent on board had been the largest, and she was as happy over it as a child with a new toy--that kind of a girl. She wanted, of course, to know about Mt. Blanc and the Rhigi, and whether the Salon would be open, and which pictures she ought to see, and what at the Luxembourg--all the questions a girl asks when she finds you can paint. Her joyousness, though, was what appealed to me. I like happy people. To her the deck of the steamer was the top of a great hill from which she looked down on sunshine and peace; no clouds, no dark shadows; only perspectives of greater happiness yet to come. This was her side of the wall.