"I really eat until I am ashamed of myself," said Mattie.
"Well, it agrees with you, Mattie," replied Denison. "Just look at her plump cheeks, and the beautiful roses upon them!"
"Indeed, I never saw you look so well as you do now," said Mrs. Jones, looking at her admiringly.
"And I am glad that I can return the compliment," replied Mattie.
"I am of the opinion that a trip to the Arctics in Silver Cloud would cure any case of dispepsia in the world," said Dr. Jones.
"What a wonderful stimulant coffee is," remarked the Professor, as he sipped a cup of that beverage.
"I never realized that fact so much as when in the army," replied Dr. Jones. "After a long day's march we would get into camp so tired that we could scarcely move. We would start our camp-fires, and very soon after you could hear a musical clink, clink, clinking in every direction. It was the sound produced by the soldier boys, pounding their coffee fine in their tin cups with the butt of their bayonets. And the effect of a pint of that hot Government Java coffee was perfectly marvelous. It would almost instantly take the aching and tired feeling from the muscles, and we could have marched all night if necessary."
"I cannot realize that this is midnight," said Mattie, as they stood upon the balcony, well wrapped in furs, looking over the vast fields of ice and snow. "One would hardly know when to get up or go to bed in this wonderful country."
The time rapidly passed; they reached the 86th, 87th, 88th, 89th degrees of latitude, and the strain upon their nerves grew to be tremendous. The Doctor and Professor could not rest anywhere but in the observatory, glasses in hand. Each was pale with excitement.
"I believe that to be land ahead," said the Doctor, pointing to a high elevation directly before them.