And now Chester and Lucy had opportunity to get near to each other in heart and mind.  With steamer chairs close together up on the promenade deck where there usually were none but themselves, they would sit for hours, talking and looking out over the sea.  “Shady bowers ’mid trees and flowers” may be ideal places for lovers; but a quiet protected corner of a big ship which plows majestically through a changeless, yet ever-changing sea, has also its charms and advantages.

On the fourth day out.  The water was smooth, the day so warm that the shade was acceptable.  Chester and Lucy had been up on the bridge with Captain Brown, who had told them stories of the sea, and had showed them pictures of his wife and baby, both safe in the “Port of Forever,” he had said.  All this had had its effect on the two young people, and so when they went down to escape the glare of the sun on the exposed bridge, they sought a shady corner amid-ships.  When they found chairs, Chester always saw that she was comfortable, for though well as she appeared, she was never free from the danger of a troublesome heart.  The light shawl which she usually wore on deck, hung loosely from her shoulders across her lap, providing a cover behind which two hands could clasp.  They sat for some time that afternoon, in silence, then Lucy asked abruptly: 

“Chester, you haven’t told me much about that girl out West.  You liked her very much, didn’t, you?”

“Yes,” he admitted, after a pause.  “I think I can truthfully say I did; but this further I can say, that my liking for her was only a sort of introduction to the stronger, more matured love which was to follow,—­my love for you.  I think I have told you before that you bear a close resemblence to her; and it occurs to me now that therein is another of God’s wonderful providences.”

“How is that?”

“Had you not looked like her I would not have been attracted to you, and very likely, would have missed you and my father, and all this.”

“I’m glad your experience has been turned to such good account.  Now, I for example, never had a beau until you came.”

“What?”

“Oh, don’t feign surprise.  You know, I’m no beauty, and I never was popular with the boys.  Someone once told me it was because I was too religious.  What do you think of that?”

“Too religious!  Nonsense.  The one thing above another, if there is such, that I like about you is that your beauty of heart and soul corresponds to your beauty of face—­No; don’t contradict.  You have the highest type of beauty—­”

“Beauty is in the eyes that see,” she interrupted.

“Certainly; and in the heart that understands.  As I said, the highest type of beauty is where the inner and the outer are harmoniously combined.  I think that is another application of the truth that the spiritual and the mortal, or ‘element’ as the revelation calls it, must be eternally connected to insure a perfect being.  Somehow, I always sympathize with one whose beautiful spirit is tabernacled in a plain body.  And yet, my pity is a hundred times more profound for one whom God has given a beautiful face and form, but whose heart and soul have been made ugly by sin—­but there, if I don’t look out, I’ll be preaching.”