nd
then it was that father Roland, perceiving, rather late, that all that
Mme. Rosemilly really enjoyed and cared for was the sail on the sea,
and seeing that his lines hung motionless, had uttered in a spirit of
unreasonable annoyance, that vehement "Tschah!" which applied as much
to the pathetic widow as to the creatures he could not catch.

Now he contemplated the spoil--his fish--with the joyful thrill of a
miser; and seeing as he looked up at the sky that the sun was getting
low: "Well, boys," said he, "suppose we turn homeward."

The young men hauled in their lines, coiled them up, cleaned the hooks
and stuck them into corks, and sat waiting.

Roland stood up to look out like a captain:

"No wind," said he. "You will have to pull, young 'uns."

And suddenly extending one arm to the northward, he exclaimed:

"Here comes the packet from Southampton."

Away over the level sea, spread out like a blue sheet, vast and
sheeny and shot with flame and gold, an inky cloud was visible against
the rosy sky in the quarter to which he pointed, and below it they
could make out the hull of the steamer, which looked tiny at such a
distance. And to the southward other wreaths of smoke, numbers of
them, could be seen, all converging toward the Havre pier, now
scarcely visible as a white streak with the light-house, upright, like
a horn, at the end of it.

Roland asked: "Is not the _Normandie_ due to-day?" And Jean replied:

"Yes, to-day."

"Give me my glass. I fancy I see her out there."

The father pulled out the copper tube, adjusted it to his eye, sought
the speck, and then, delighted to have seen it, exclaimed:

"Yes, yes, there she is. I know her two funnels. Would you like to
look, Mme. Rosemilly?"

She took the telescope and directed it toward the Atlantic horizon,
without being able, however, to find the vessel, for she could
distinguish nothing--nothing but blue, with a colored halo round it, a
circular rainbow--and then all manner of queer things, winking
eclipses which made her feel sick.

She said as she returned the glass:

"I never could see with that thing. It used to put my husband in quite
a rage; he would stand for hours at the window watching the ships
pass."

Old Roland, much put out, retorted:

"Then it must be some defect in your eye, for my glass is a very good
one."

Then he offered it to his wife.

"Would you like to look?"

"No, thank you. I know beforehand that I could not see th