Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/92

 looked awfully subdued,—as though she'd seen a bad accident. And what I had my arms around wasn't the substantial Miss Marple who had had a mysterious lifelong authority over me, but a being I'd never seen or felt before, a willowy, wide-eyed, timid girl, whispering wasn't it time to go in. So we did, frightened stiff—at least I know I was."

"My, is that all one letter?" Grover was startled by the question. The bugle was sounding and his neighbor was heaving herself slowly up, intent on food. He rose and gave her a hand. "My rheumatism," she explained again, as. The Little French Girl and sundry other paraphernalia went sliding to the deck. Grover stooped to pick them up and as the ship lurched the lady lurched too, steadying herself against the only part of him at the moment available. Stay home next time, you old moose, he muttered to himself, and drop things on your own floor. He wondered if the girl from Vassar was too highbrow to pick them up.

"It's three days since I wrote the last sentence. Since then we've sailed into a calm blue stretch, where you don't even have to touch wood, not to be sick. We're almost there, and my nerves are singing little tunes—French tunes. It's hard to get one's thoughts back into a letter-writing mood, but having got so far into my life story I must give you the sequel, provided