lem of buying cheap and selling dear, and they could be known by
their silence from the loquacious, acquaintance-making way-travellers.
In these, the mere coming aboard seemed to beget an aggressively
confidential mood. Perhaps they clutched recklessly at any means of
relieving their ennui; or they felt that they might here indulge safely
in the pleasures of autobiography, so dear to all of us; or else, in
view of the many possible catastrophes, they desired to leave some
little memory of themselves behind. At any rate, whenever the train
stopped, the wedding-journeyers caught fragments of the personal
histories of their fellow-passengers which had been rehearsing to those
that sat next the narrators. It was no more than fair that these should
somewhat magnify themselves, and put the best complexion on their
actions and the worst upon their sufferings; that they should all appear
the luckiest or the unluckiest, the healthiest or the sickest, people
that ever were, and should all have made or lost the most money. There
was a prevailing desire among them to make out that they came from or
were going to same very large place; and our friends fancied an actual
mortification in the face of a modest gentleman who got out at Penelope
(or some other insignificant classical station, in the ancient Greek and
Roman part of New York State), after having listened to the life of a
somewhat rustic-looking person who had described himself as belonging
near New York City.

Basil also found diversion in the tender couples, who publicly comported
themselves as if in a sylvan solitude, and, as it had been on the bank
of some umbrageous stream, far from the ken of envious or unsympathetic
eyes, reclined upon each other's shoulders and slept; but Isabel
declared that this behavior was perfectly indecent. She granted, of
course, that they were foolish, innocent people, who meant no offense,
and did not feel guilty of an impropriety, but she said that this sort
of thing was a national reproach. If it were merely rustic lovers, she
should not care so much; but you saw people who ought to know better,
well-dressed, stylish people, flaunting their devotion in the face
of the world, and going to sleep on each other's shoulders on every
railroad train. It was outrageous, it was scandalous, it was really
infamous. Before she would allow herself to do such a thing she
would--well, she hardly knew what she would not do; she would have a
divorce, at an