een grown up. I felt like I had the
weight of the nation on my shoulders, I assure you."

"And have you always worked since? You are not working out now?" with a
glance at her shining gown.

"Oh, no, not for a long time. I learned to be a cook. I was a good cook,
too, if I say it myself. I worked for the Lossings for four years. I am
not a bit ashamed of being a hired girl, for I was as good a one as
I knew how. It was Mrs. Lossing that first lent me books; and Harry
Lossing, who is head of the firm now, got Ebenezer into the works.
Ebenezer is shipping-clerk with a good salary and stock in the concern;
and Ralph is there, learning the trade. I went to the business-college
and learned book-keeping, and afterward I learned typewriting and
shorthand. I have been working for the firm for fourteen years. We
have educated the girls. Milly is married, and Kitty goes to the
boarding-school, here."

"Then you haven't been married yourself?"

"What time did I have to think of being married? I had the family on my
mind, and looking after them."

"That was more fortunate for your family than it was for my sex,"
said Nelson, gallantly. He accompanied the compliment by a glance of
admiration, extinguished in an eye-flash, for the white radiance that
had bathed the deck suddenly vanished.

"Now you will see a lovely sight," said the woman, deigning no reply to
his tribute; "listen! That is the signal."

The air was shaken with the boom of cannon. Once, twice, thrice.
Directly the boat-whistles took up the roar, making a hideous din. The
fleet had moved. Spouting rockets and Roman candles, which painted above
it a kaleidoscopic archway of fire, welcomed by answering javelins of
light and red and orange and blue and green flares from the shore; the
fleet bombarded the bridge, escorted Neptune in his car, manoeuvred and
massed and charged on the blazing city with a many-hued shower of flame.

After the boats, silently, softly, floated the battalions of lanterns,
so close to the water that they seemed flaming water-lilies, while the
dusky mirror repeated and inverted their splendor.

"They're shingles, you know," explained Nelson's companion, "with
lanterns on them; but aren't they pretty?"

"Yes, they are! I wish you had not told me. It is like a fairy story!"

"Ain't it? But we aren't through; there's more to come. Beautiful
fireworks!"

The fireworks, however, were slow of coming. They could see the barge
from which the