Thoroughly mistress of the position, she yet thought it worth while, as she was the only other passenger on deck, to favour the raw youth before-mentioned with an occasional beam from her charms, and accorded him a very gracious bow in acknowledgment of the awkwardness with which he re-arranged a cushion that slid to leeward from under her feet. She was even disappointed when the roll of a cross-sea, combined with the effect of bad tobacco, necessitated his withdrawal from her presence, to return no more, and was beginning to wonder if the captain would never descend from his bridge between the paddle-boxes, when a fresh, smiling face peeped up from the cabin-door, and Daisy, as little affected by sea-sickness as herself, looking the picture of health and spirits, staggered across the deck to take his place by her side.
"You here, Mr. Walters!" said she. "Well, this is a surprise! Where have you been? where are you going? and how did you get on board without our seeing you?"
"I've been back for 'muster,'" answered Daisy; "I'm going to Punchestown; and I didn't know you were here, because I stayed below to have some luncheon in the cabin. How's Lushington? Have you brought him with you, or are you quite alone, on your own hook?"
"What a question!" she laughed. "I suppose you think I'm old enough and ugly enough to take care of myself! No, I'm not absolutely 'on my own hook,' as you call it. I've given Frank a holiday—goodness knows what mischief he won't get into!—but I've got a companion, and a very nice one, though perhaps not quite so nice as usual just at this moment."
"Then it's a lady," said Daisy, apparently but little interested in the intelligence.
"A lady," she repeated, with a searching look in his face; "and a very charming lady, too, though a bad sailor. Do you mean to say you can't guess who it is?"
"Miss Douglas, for a pony!" was his answer; and the loud, frank tones, the joyous smile, the utter absence of self-consciousness or after-thought, seemed to afford Mrs. Lushington no slight gratification.
"You would win your pony," she replied gently. "Yes, Blanche and I are going over to Ireland, partly to stay with some very pleasant people near Dublin, partly—now, I don't want to make you conceited—partly because she has set her heart on seeing you ride; and so have I."
Practice, no doubt, makes perfect. With this flattering acknowledgment, she put just the right amount of interest into her glance, let it dwell on him the right time, and averted it at the right moment.
"She's a deuced pretty woman!" thought Daisy. "How well she looks with her hair blown all about her face, and her cloak gathered up under her dear little chin!" He felt quite sorry that the Wicklow range was already looming through its rain-charged atmosphere as they neared the Irish coast.