Three of us sat upon an upper deck, sailing to an island. The day was sunlit, the wind was gentle, and the faintest ripple passed over the sea.

“Do you see the tremulous old man sitting over there by the pilot-house absorbing the sunshine? He reminds me of another old man, one whom I watched for six years, while he faded and died. He never knew me, but he walked by my house daily and I walked by his. It was an interesting study. The conclusion of the process was so inevitable. The time came when he did not pass my house. Then he took the sunlight in a bow-window on the second floor of his residence. So closely had I watched his decadence during the six years that I was able to say to myself one morning, 'There will be crape on his door before the day is out.' And so there was.”

The bon-vivant laughed rather mechanically, but the other, he who makes verses so dainty that the world does not heed them, smiled softly and sympathetically to me and said:

“You are right. Nothing is so fascinating as the study of a progress—a development or a decline. The inevitability of the end makes it more engrossing, for it relieves it of the undue eagerness of curiosity, the feverishness of uncertainty.”

“Well, I am content rather to live than to contemplate life,” said the bon-vivant. “It's true I have given myself up to observing anxiously such an advancement as you describe—a vulgar one you will say. When I was a very young man I was a very thin man. I determined to amplify my dimensions. I followed with careful interest my daily increase toward my present—let us not say obesity, but call it portliness.”

“You are inclined to be easy upon yourself,” I commented.

“Indeed I am—in all matters.”

After a pause the verse-maker, throwing away his cigarette, took up again the theme that I had introduced.

“Yes, it is an engaging occupation to note any progression, even when it is toward a fatal or a horrible culmination. But when it is to some beautiful and happy outcome, this advancement is an ineffably charming spectacle. Such it is when it is the unfolding of a flower or the filling out of a poetic thought.

“But no growth nor transformation in the material world is more entrancing to observe than that by which a young girl becomes a lovely woman.

“This transition seems to be sudden. It is not so. It is rapid, perhaps, as life goes, but each stage is distinctly marked. All men have not time to watch the change, however, and so most men awaken to its occurrence only when it is completed. Such was the case of the young and lowborn lover of Consuelo in George Sand's romance. Do you remember that incomparable scene in which he suddenly begins to notice that some feature of Consuelo is handsome, and, with surprise, calls her attention to its comeliness? She, equally astonished and delighted, joins him in the visual examination of her charms, and the two pass from one attraction to the other, finally completing the discovery that she is a beautiful woman.

“The Italian gamin was not the sort of man to have anticipated this transfiguration and to have watched its stages.

“You may argue that his delight at suddenly opening his eyes to the finished work was greater than would have been his pleasure at contemplating the alteration in process. Doubtless his was. As to whether yours would be in such a case, depends upon your temperament.

“I have experienced both of these pleasures. Perhaps it may be due to certain special circumstances that I cherish the memory of the more lasting delight, even though it was tempered by occasional doubts as to the end, more tenderly than I do the more sudden and keen awakening.

“There is a woman who first came under my observations when she was thirteen years old. She was then agreeable enough to the eye, more by reason of the gentleness of her expression than for any noteworthy attractions of face and figure. Her face, indeed, was plain and uninteresting; her figure unformed and too slim. Her hair, however, was charming, being soft and extremely light in colour. She seemed awkward, too, and timid, through fear of offending or making a bad impression.

“For a reason I was particularly interested in her. I knew, young as I then was, that plain girls, in many cases, develop into handsome women.

“At fourteen her hair showed indications of changing its tint. Its tendency was unmistakably toward brown. This was temporarily unfavourable, but a brightening of the blue eyes and a newly acquired poise of the head, with a step toward self-confidence in manner, were compensating alterations.

“At fifteen there came an emancipation of mind and speech from schoolgirl habits. A defensive assumption of impertinent reserve, varied by fits of superficial garrulity, gave way to real thoughtfulness, to natural amiability. Then came, too, an emboldenment of the facial outline, a constancy to the colour of the cheeks, a certainty of gait, and the first perceptible roundness of contour beneath the neck.

“At sixteen she had adorable hands, and she could wear short sleeves with impunity. A rational, unforced, and coherent vivacity had now revealed itself as a characteristic of her mode and conversation. Her ankles had long before that grown too sightly to be exhibited. Such is so-called civilization! Her hair seemed to darken before one's eyes. The oval of her face attracted the attention of more than one of my artist friends.

“At seventeen she had learned what styles of attire, what arrangements of her hair, were best suited to display effectively her comeliness.

“This was one of the greatest steps of all.

“The simplest draperies, she found, the least complicated headgear, were most advantageous to her appearance.

“A taste for reading the most ideal and artistic of books, as well as her liking for poetry, the theatre, music, and pictures had implanted that exalted something in her face which cannot be otherwise acquired.

“When she was eighteen people on the street turned to look at her as she passed.

“At nineteen her figure was unsurpassable. Indeed, I think there cannot be a more beautiful and charming woman in America. She is now twenty.

“It was my privilege to view closely the bursting of this bud into bloom.”

The fin de siÈcle versewright became silent and lighted a fresh cigarette.

“Will you permit me to ask,” said I, “what were the especial facilities that you had for observing this evolution?”

“Yes,” he answered, softly, a tender look coming into his eyes. “She is my wife. She was thirteen when I married her. Suddenly placed without means of subsistence, knowing nothing of the world, she came to me. I could see no other way. We are very happy together.”

The pretty narrative of the rhymer put each of us in a delectable mood. The notes of a harp and violins came from the lower deck in the form of a seductive Italian melody. White sails dotted the far-reaching sea.