CHAPTER LX 



" I TOLD YOU SO " 



IT may be the limitless horizon, it may be the 

 comradery of confinement, it may be the old 

 superstition of a plank between one and 

 eternity, or it may be some occult influence of 

 ship and ocean ; but certain it is that there is no 

 such place in all the world as a deck of a trans- 

 atlantic liner for softening young hearts, until 

 they lose all semblance of shape, and for melting 

 them into each other so that out of twain there 

 comes but one. I think Polly was pleased to 

 watch this melting process, as it began to show 

 itself in our young people, from the safe retreat 

 of her steamer chair and behind the covers of her 

 book. I couldn't find that she read two chapters 

 from any book during the whole voyage, or that 

 she was miserable or discontented. She just 

 watched with a comfortable I told you so " 

 expression of countenance ; and she never men- 

 tioned home lot or garden or roses, from dock 

 to dock. 



It is as natural for a woman to make matches 

 as for a robin to build nests, and I suppose I had 

 as much right to find fault with the one as with 



