“A nautical mile; dear me, how stupid you are, Laura!”
“Oh! I understand. But, really, the noise of that screw makes it difficult to hear distinctly. And, after all, it is no wonder if I am stupid, for what between eating nothing but pickles for six weeks, and this dreadful—there! Oh! It comes ag—”
Poor Miss Pritty stopped abruptly, and made a desperate effort to think of home. Aileen, albeit full of sympathy, turned her face to the wall, and lay with closed eyes.
After a time the latter looked slowly round.
“Are you asleep, Laura?”
Miss Pritty gave a sharp semi-hysterical laugh at the bare idea of such an impossible condition.
“Well, I was going to say,” resumed Aileen, “that we cannot be very far from land now, and when we do get there—”
“Happy day!” murmured Miss Pritty.
“We intend,” continued Aileen, “to go straight home—I—I mean to our old home, sell everything at once, and go to live in a cottage—quite a tiny cottage—by the sea somewhere. Now, I want you to come and visit us the very day we get into our cottage. I know you would like it—would like being with me, wouldn’t you?”
“Like it? I should delight in it of all things.”