“Which is pretty hard work with a sea like this on,” remarked Ophelia, faintly, for she was getting a trifle sallow, as indeed she might, for the House-boat was beginning to roll tremendously, with no alleviation save an occasional pitch, which was an alleviation only in the sense that it gave variety to their discomfort.  “I don’t believe a chief-justice could look at things calmly and in a judicial manner if he felt as I do.”

“Poor dear!” said the matronly Mrs. Noah, sympathetically.  “I know exactly how you feel.  I have been there myself.  The fourth day out I and my whole family were in the same condition, except that Noah, my husband, was so very far gone that I could not afford to yield.  I nursed him for six days before he got his sea-legs on, and then succumbed myself.”

“But,” gasped Ophelia, “that doesn’t help me—­”

“It did my husband,” said Mrs. Noah.  “When he heard that the boys were sea-sick too, he actually laughed and began to get better right away.  There is really only one cure for the mal de mer, and that is the fun of knowing that somebody else is suffering too.  If some of you ladies would kindly yield to the seductions of the sea, I think we could get this poor girl on her feet in an instant.”

Unfortunately for poor Ophelia, there was no immediate response to this appeal, and the unhappy young woman was forced to suffer in solitude.

“We have no time for untimely diversions of this sort,” snapped Xanthippe, with a scornful glance at the suffering Ophelia, who, having retired to a comfortable lounge at an end of the room, was evidently improving.  “I have no sympathy with this habit some of my sex seem to have acquired of succumbing to an immediate sensation of this nature.”

“I hope to be pardoned for interrupting,” said Mrs. Noah, with a great deal of firmness, “but I wish Mrs. Socrates to understand that it is rather early in the voyage for her to lay down any such broad principle as that, and for her own sake to-morrow, I think it would be well if she withdrew the sentiment.  There are certain things about a sea-voyage that are more or less beyond the control of man or woman, and any one who chides that poor suffering child on yonder sofa ought to be more confident than Mrs. Socrates can possibly be that within an hour she will not be as badly off.  People who live in glass houses should not throw dice.”

“I shall never yield to anything so undignified as seasickness, let me tell you that,” retorted Xanthippe.  “Furthermore, the proverb is not as the lady has quoted it.  ’People who live in glass houses should not throw stones’ is the proper version.”

“I was not quoting,” returned Mrs. Noah, calmly.  “When I said that people who live in glass houses should not throw dice, I meant precisely what I said.  People who live in glass houses should not take chances.  In assuming with such vainglorious positiveness that she will not be seasick, the lady who has just spoken is giving tremendous odds, as the boys used to say on the Ark when we gathered about the table at night and began to make small wagers on the day’s run.”