all this,—you warned him just the way Punch flags its readers when they are approaching a joke,—so he'll probably persevere till he has ferreted out the humorous side of it. But—Miss Varris, where is your mother?" he recollected suddenly. "Not under decks in this sea, surely?"
"No, in Cornwall still."
"She's well, I hope?"
"Very. It's this way: You remember, we were to come back together on the Northumbria next Wednesday, but I received a cable asking me to come back a week earlier for a wedding at which I am to be bridesmaid. At the same time mother decided to stay for a month with Mrs. Brookingdale, in Cornwall. So, as my aunt, who has been spending the last month at Brighton, was going back upon this boat and had a whole cabin to herself, I decided to cross back with her. She was to have come down from Brighton to meet me at Southampton."
"Was to have?"
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