uld all or any of it end, but there came a moment when there began
to be warnings that were almost threats of the end. The ship's whistle
sounded, as if marking a certain interval; and Mrs. March humbly
entreated, sternly commanded, her son to go ashore, or else be carried
to Europe. They disputed whether that was the last signal or not; she
was sure it was, and she appealed to March, who was moved against his
reason. He affected to talk calmly with his son, and gave him some last
charges about 'Every Other Week'.

Some people now interrupted their leave-taking; but the arriving
passengers only arrived more rapidly at the gang-ways; the bulks of
baggage swung more swiftly into the air. A bell rang, and there rose
women's cries, "Oh, that is the shore-bell!" and men's protests, "It is
only the first bell!" More and more began to descend the gangways, fore
and aft, and soon outnumbered those who were coming aboard.

March tried not to be nervous about his son's lingering; he was ashamed
of his anxiety; but he said in a low voice, "Better be off, Tom."

His mother now said she did not care if Tom were really carried to
Europe; and at last he said, Well, he guessed he must go ashore, as if
there had been no question of that before; and then she clung to him
and would not let him go; but she acquired merit with herself at last by
pushing him into the gangway with her own hands: he nodded and waved his
hat from its foot, and mixed with the crowd.

Presently there was hardly any one coming aboard, and the sailors began
to undo the lashings of the gangways from the ship's side; files of
men on the wharf laid hold of their rails; the stewards guarding their
approach looked up for the signal to come aboard; and in vivid
pantomime forbade some belated leavetakers to ascend. These stood aside,
exchanging bows and grins with the friends whom they could not reach;
they all tried to make one another hear some last words. The moment came
when the saloon gangway was detached; then it was pulled ashore, and the
section of the bulwarks opening to it was locked, not to be unlocked on
this side of the world. An indefinable impulse communicated itself to
the steamer: while it still seemed motionless it moved. The thick spread
of faces on the wharf, which had looked at times like some sort of
strange flowers in a level field, broke into a universal tremor, and the
air above them was filled with hats and handkerchiefs, as if with the
flight