"I do believe that you grow to be more of a boy every year of your life," panted Mrs. Jones, as she smoothed her rumpled hair.
"You are quite right, Maggie; and what is worse, I do not expect to ever improve a bit on that line. Give me the heart of a boy while I live. And now, Professor, I am ready to give you revenge for that last game or two of chess that went to my credit."
While these two were oblivious to the world in a very closely contested game, Mrs. Jones sat knitting while Mattie read aloud to her from a late magazine. Denison and Fred were pacing the balcony for their "constitutional." Will was working on his oil painting of Jennie Barton, and so beautifully had he succeeded in bringing out the lovely features, and trusting, fearless spirit that beamed from a pair of dark blue eyes, that all the company, even to Sing, expressed their unqualified admiration.
"Me sabe," said the acute Mongolian. "Ah! Will heap likee Miss Jennie."
The artist blushed, and they all laughed uproariously at his confusion, and Sing went chuckling to the kitchen.
The following morning Silver Cloud had nearly crossed Davis Strait, and the bold headlands of the western coast of Greenland were in plain view. They crossed the western boundary line of that land of perpetual winter, just a few miles north of the Arctic Circle.
"Hurrah!" shouted Dr. Jones. "In the Arctics at last!"
The wind held still a little north of due east, and Silver Cloud rode at an elevation of between 3,500 and 4,000 feet. The surface of Greenland was cold, dreary, and uninviting to a degree. Vast tracts of ice and snow stretched in every direction, far as the eye could see. Away in the interior a range of mountains broke the monotony of the landscape. Toward morning a violent snowstorm gathered below them and hid the face of Greenland from view until next morning. Silver Cloud, meantime, was sent up to nearly 5,000 feet altitude, so that they might not collide with any mountain peak during the night.
"Upon my word," said Professor Gray, as he stood on the balcony the following morning, and looked out over the white and ghastly picture of desolation, "I thought Labrador the most inappropriately named country upon the earth, but think of calling this picture of all that is inhospitable and forbidding--Greenland!"