This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Fifty Candles

still brave enough to hold her head high and refuse.

Henry Drew had heard of her plight and whatever his motive, had done a kind act for once. He engaged Mary Will as companion for his wife, and on the boat coming over the girl and Mrs. Drew had occupied a cabin with a frail little missionary woman. For husbands and wives were ruthlessly torn apart, that each stateroom might have its full quota of three. As I sat there with the fog dripping down upon me I pictured again our good-by on the deck, where we had been lined up to await the port doctor and be frisked, as a frivolous ship’s officer put it, for symptoms of yellow fever. By chance—more or less—I was waiting beside Mary Will.

“Too bad you can’t see the harbor,” said Mary Will. “Only six weeks ago I sailed away—and the sun was on it—it’s beautiful. But this silly old fog———”

“Never mind the fog,” I told her.

30