rington's deplorable suit
is coming on he reflects with some satisfaction that the Court of
Probate and Divorce is far from the banks of the Rappahannock.
'Berrington _versus_ Berrington and Others' is coming on--but these are
matters of the present hour.

THE PATAGONIA

I

The houses were dark in the August night and the perspective of Beacon
Street, with its double chain of lamps, was a foreshortened desert. The
club on the hill alone, from its semi-cylindrical front, projected a
glow upon the dusky vagueness of the Common, and as I passed it I heard
in the hot stillness the click of a pair of billiard balls. As 'every
one' was out of town perhaps the servants, in the extravagance of their
leisure, were profaning the tables. The heat was insufferable and I
thought with joy of the morrow, of the deck of the steamer, the
freshening breeze, the sense of getting out to sea. I was even glad of
what I had learned in the afternoon at the office of the company--that
at the eleventh hour an old ship with a lower standard of speed had been
put on in place of the vessel in which I had taken my passage. America
was roasting, England might very well be stuffy, and a slow passage
(which at that season of the year would probably also be a fine one) was
a guarantee of ten or twelve days of fresh air.

I strolled down the hill without meeting a creature, though I could see
through the palings of the Common that that recreative expanse was
peopled with dim forms. I remembered Mrs. Nettlepoint's house--she lived
in those days (they are not so distant, but there have been changes) on
the water-side, a little way beyond the spot at which the Public Garden
terminates; and I reflected that like myself she would be spending the
night in Boston if it were true that, as had been mentioned to me a few
days before at Mount Desert, she was to embark on the morrow for
Liverpool. I presently saw this appearance confirmed by a light above
her door and in two or three of her windows, and I determined to ask for
her, having nothing to do till bedtime. I had come out simply to pass an
hour, leaving my hotel to the blaze of its gas and the perspiration of
its porters; but it occurred to me that my old friend might very well
not know of the substitution of the _Patagonia_ for the _Scandinavia_,
so that it would be an act of consideration to prepare her mind.
Besides, I could offer to help her, to look after her in the morning:
lone wom