"
Florimel cast on him a scornful look. For not merely was he
talking his usual unintelligible rubbish of poetry, but he had the
impertinence to speak as if he had done nothing amiss, and she had
no ground for being offended with him. She made him no answer. A
cloud came over Malcolm's face; and until she went again below, he
gave his attention to his steering.
In the meantime Rose, who happily had turned out as good a sailor
as her new mistress, had tidied the little cabin; and Florimel
found, if not quite such a sumptuous breakfast laid as at Portland
Place, yet a far better appetite than usual to meet what there
was; and when she had finished, her temper was better, and she was
inclined to think less indignantly of Malcolm's share in causing
her so great a pleasure. She was not yet quite spoiled. She was
still such a lover of the visible world and of personal freedom,
that the thought of returning to London and its leaden footed
hours, would now have been unendurable. At this moment she could
have imagined no better thing than thus to go tearing through the
water--home to her home. For although she had spent little of
her life at Lossie House, she could not but prefer it unspeakably
to the schools in which she had passed almost the whole of the preceding
portion of it.
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