I'm on the fly, anyhow, Rosey dear, hevin' to see a man round the corner.

"Ef Rosey," he continued, "hez read in v'yages and tracks in Eyetalian and French countries of such chaps ez you and kalkilates you're the right kind to tie to, mebbee it mout hev done if you'd been livin' over thar in a pallis, but somehow it don't jibe in over here and agree with a shipand that ship lying comf'able ashore in San Francisco.

Agin," said Nott, with an ostentation of looking at his companion but really gazing on vacancy, "this fixed-up, antique style of yours goes better with them ivy-kivered ruins in Rome and Palmyry that Rosey's mixed you up with, than it would yere.

"Said his doctor had ordered him to quit town under an hour, owing to a comin' attack of hay fever, and he had a friend from furrin parts waitin' him at the Springs, Rosey," explained Nott, hesitating between his desire to avoid his daughter's eyes and his wish to observe her countenance.

"Was he worse?I mean did he look badly, father?" inquired Rosey, thoughtfully.

" "Did you see him?in his room?" asked Rosey anxiously.

The sound was so unlike that made by any garment worn by Rosey that he remained motionless, with his hand on the door.

"Let me seethat's Donna Elvira's dressis it not?" "I don't think that was the poor woman's name," said Rosey simply; "she died of yellow fever at New Orleans as Signora Somebody.

Rosey was "not long," as she had said, but he was beginning to pace the narrow cabin impatiently when the door opened and she returned.

At any other time he might have recognized the change as due to a new corset, which strict veracity compels me to record Rosey had adopted for the first time that morning.

It was a very little improvement on out-doors," said Rosey, with a little shiver.

"He thinks," continued Rosey, with a faint smile, "that some one is looking round the ship, and talks of setting bear-traps.

"It's jist as well that Rosey reckons that you and me is settlin' our accounts," he began, cunningly, "and mebbee it's just ez

"I am afraid I can't see any similarity either, Mr. Nott," said Renshaw, struggling between a dawning sense of some impending absurdity and his growing passion for Rosey.

Rosey tumbled to it at once, partiklerly when I said you was bound to go.

The nervous tension of the past few hours relaxed; he laughed until the tears came into his eyes; he was still laughing when the door of the cabin suddenly opened and Rosey appeared cold and distant on the threshold.

"You kin ketch the seven-o'clock boat this morning, and you'll reach San Rafael at ten" "But I thought Miss Rosey went to Petaluma," interrupted Renshaw quickly.

" "But you didn't mean to beit was some mistake, wasn't it?" said Rosey, quite white, but more from sympathy with the offender's emotion than horror at the offense.

" Indeed so little did Rosey shrink that he was conscious of a slight reassuring pressure on his arm as they moved forward, and for the moment I fear the young man felt like exaggerating his offense for the sake of proportionate sympathy.

" He laid his disengaged hand across lightly on Rosey's, as if to assure himself that she was listening.

"But it's a pity you didn't find it out while you were about it," said Rosey.

And if there was only just time for Rosey to prepare to take the boat, it was due to the deviousness of the way.

Lord, Rosey," he continued, stopping and following up the reminiscence, with the end of the rope in his hand as if it were a clue, "don't ye mind that day we started outer Livermore Pass, and seed the hull o' the Kaliforny coast stretchin' yondereh?

But don't ye be skeered, Rosey dear," he added quickly, as if in recognition of the alarm expressed in her face.

Rosey, conscious of her lover's irritation, and more eager to soothe his impatience than from any faith in her suggestion, interfered.