Meanwhile the Windemere girls and the traveler had turned and were
listening, as Mrs. Campbell meant they should.
"What pleases you, Zaidee?" asked Laura, the older, settling her
eyeglasses anew, the better to gaze at her friend.
"Oh, an amusing incident that occurred last night. I happened to see a
part, and easily drew the rest out of Mr. Frazer by adroit questioning,
for, I assure you, it made me curious."
Mr. Frazer was the purser, and the one who had stood talking with
Captain Hosmer when Hope ran out to him, the night before.
"What is it?" asked both girls in a breath, and the traveler added,
with a laugh,
"Yes, indeed, if any one knows anything funny on shipboard it is a
bounden duty to tell it."
"Well, I hardly know whether you could call this funny, or
tragic--perhaps serio-comic is the word," returned Mrs. Campbell in her
smooth little drawl, with its expression of amused indifference, which
always stimulated the interest of the listener. "It was exciting,
anyhow. Somewhere well along towards midnight, last evening, a certain
young lady--a mere girl indeed--was promenading the deck with a strange
young man, when her sister, probably knowing the girl's propensities,
rose from her bed, rushed out to her father, who was at his post,"--she
cast an eye upward towards the bridge--"and begged of him to 'save
sister,' upon which, rather sternly, he marched her back to her cabin
and, hunting up the other one, took her from her escort and led her
inside also, where I imagine there was a scene.
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