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 
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