“What makes this up and down feeling?” she asked Mitchell.

“What up and down feeling?” he asked, secure in the good conscience and pure living of an oatmeal breakfast.  “I don’t feel up and down.”

“I do,” said Aunt Mary abruptly; “I want to be somewhere else.”

“You want to be on deck,” said Burnett, suddenly emerging from somewhere; “I know the symptoms.  I always have ’em.  Come on.  And when we get up there, I’ll collar Jack for urging those six last griddle cakes on me this morning.”

“I ain’t sure I want to be on deck,” said Aunt Mary; “dear me—­I feel as if I wasn’t sure of anythin’.”

“What did I tell you?” said Burnett to Mitchell; “it’s blowing fresh and neither she nor I ought to have come.  You know me when it blows.”

“Shut up,” said Mitchell, hurrying Aunt Mary up the companion-way and shoving her into one chair and her feet into another; “there, Miss Watkins, you’re all right now, aren’t you?”

“What’s the matter?” said Jack, coming from somewhere aloft or astern.  “Heaven bless me, what ails you, Aunt Mary?”

“I don’t wonder I’m pale,” said Aunt Mary faintly, “oh—­oh—­”

“We must put our heads together,” said Burnett, taking a drink from a flask that he took out of his pocket; “I must soon put my head on something, and your aunt looks to me to feel the same way.  Mitchell, why did you let me forget that vow I made last time to never come again?”

“Your vows to never do things again are about as stable as your present hold on an upright position,” said Clover, laying a steadying hand upon his friend’s waveringness.  “Sit down, little boy, sit down.”

Burnett sat down, Mitchell smiled, Jack laughed, and Aunt Mary groaned.

The boat was rising and falling rapidly now, and as she ran further and further out into the ever freshening wind she kept on rising and falling yet more rapidly.  The more motion there was the more Aunt Mary seemed to sift down in her two chairs.

“We’d better put back,” said Jack; “this won’t do, you know.  How do you feel now, Aunt Mary?” he added, leaning over her.

Aunt Mary opened her eyes and looked at him but made no reply.

“Ask me how I feel, if you dare,” said Burnett, from where his chair was drawn up not far away.  “I couldn’t kill you just now, but I will some day I promise you.”

He was very white and had a look about his mouth that showed that he meant what he said.

Some bells rang somewhere.

“That’s dinner,” exclaimed Clover.

Aunt Mary gave a piercing cry.

“Oh, take me somewhere else,” she said, throwing her hands up to her face; “somewhere where there’ll never be nothin’ to eat again.  I—­I can’t bear to hear about eatin’.”

“I’m going to take her down into one of the cabins,” said Jack hastily, “she belongs in bed.”

“No, turn back the carpet and lay me in the bath-tub,” almost sobbed the poor victim.  “I don’t feel like I could get flat enough anywhere else.”