When Ingleby came up, she found Dorothy sound asleep, and her arm round Irene's neck. Both children were in profound slumber. Ingleby gently lifted Irene and carried her back to her own room, Dorothy murmuring as she turned round on her pillow, "Away with the swallows, off to the sunny South."

They were off in good earnest the next morning—a bright and beautiful morning. The sea was blue, and the sky clear; only a brisk wind chased the waves shoreward, and gave just that motion which to good sailors is so delightful.

There were, of course, some unhappy people who could not bear even that gentle motion, and had to take flight to the cabin. Poor Ingleby was one of these, and in spite of all her brave attempts to keep up, she was obliged to leave the children to Canon Percival's care, and retreat with her mistress to the lower regions.

Dorothy and Irene sat together on the middle seat of the deck, with their faces to the dancing waves, over which some white birds were darting, who had their nests in the face of the cliffs of Dover. It had all the delightful sense of novelty to Dorothy, but Irene was already a traveller. In a dim, dreamy way she was thinking of her voyage home, four years before; she remembered the pain of parting with the dark-skinned ayah, and her father's sad face, as they drew near England.

"OH, WHAT A CROSS LITTLE DOGGIE!"
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Those white cliffs brought it all back to her, and she recalled how her father said,—

"England was your dear mother's home, and she loved it, but she is in a better home now; I must not wish her back again."

After that her life at Mrs. Baker's was dull and monotonous; going on and on day after day, week after week, year after year, with but little to mark the passing away of time.

Irene was not particularly attractive to strangers, and the passengers who turned upon Dorothy admiring glances, and even, in that foolish way some people have, exclaimed, "What a lovely child!" scarcely gave a thought to her companion.

"A plain girl," one lady said; "they cannot be sisters!"