These phrases are my own--the substance, not the fashion, of her speech.
"You do not, then," I said, "believe wholly in the unselfishness of missionaries, the fair dealing of traders, the perfect impartiality of justice, as shown through steel-clad cruisers ?" "I have seen too much to be quite fair in judgment, I fear, even to men-of-war's men;" and she paused, listening to a song which came from the after-part of the ship.

The air was very still, and a few of the words of the droll, plaintive ditty came to us.
Quartermaster Stone, as he passed us, hummed it, and some voices of the first-class passengers near joined in the refrain: "Sing, hey, for a rover on the sea, And the old world!" Some days later I got all of the song from one of the intermediate passengers, and the last verse of it I give here: "I'm a-sailing, I'm a-sailing on the sea, To a harbour where the wind is still; Oh, my dearie, do you wait for me?
Oh, my dearie, do you love me still?
Sing, hey, for a rover on the sea, And the old world!" I noticed that Mrs.Falchion's brow contracted as the song proceeded, making a deep vertical line between the eyes, and that the fingers of the hand nearest me closed on the chair-arm firmly.

The hand attracted me.

It was long, the fingers were shapely, but not markedly tapering, and suggested firmness.

I remarked afterward, when I chanced to shake hands with her, that her fingers enclosed one's hand; it was not a mere touch or pressure, but an unemotional and possessive clasp.