en are grateful for support in taking ship for far countries.

As I stood on her doorstep I remembered that as she had a son she might
not after all be so lone; yet at the same time it was present to me that
Jasper Nettlepoint was not quite a young man to lean upon, having (as I
at least supposed) a life of his own and tastes and habits which had
long since drawn him away from the maternal side. If he did happen just
now to be at home my solicitude would of course seem officious; for in
his many wanderings--I believed he had roamed all over the globe--he
would certainly have learned how to manage. None the less I was very
glad to show Mrs. Nettlepoint I thought of her. With my long absence I
had lost sight of her; but I had liked her of old; she had been a close
friend of my sisters; and I had in regard to her that sense which is
pleasant to those who, in general, have grown strange or detached--the
feeling that she at least knew all about me. I could trust her at any
time to tell people what a respectable person I was. Perhaps I was
conscious of how little I deserved this indulgence when it came over me
that for years I had not communicated with her. The measure of this
neglect was given by my vagueness of mind about her son. However, I
really belonged nowadays to a different generation: I was more the old
lady's contemporary than Jasper's.

Mrs. Nettlepoint was at home: I found her in her back drawing-room,
where the wide windows opened upon the water. The room was dusky--it was
too hot for lamps--and she sat slowly moving her fan and looking out on
the little arm of the sea which is so pretty at night, reflecting the
lights of Cambridgeport and Charlestown. I supposed she was musing upon
the loved ones she was to leave behind, her married daughters, her
grandchildren; but she struck a note more specifically Bostonian as she
said to me, pointing with her fan to the Back Bay--'I shall see nothing
more charming than that over there, you know!' She made me very welcome,
but her son had told her about the _Patagonia_, for which she was sorry,
as this would mean a longer voyage. She was a poor creature on shipboard
and mainly confined to her cabin, even in weather extravagantly termed
fine--as if any weather could be fine at sea.

'Ah, then your son's going with you?' I asked.

'Here he comes, he will tell you for himself much better than I am able
to do.'

Jasper Nettlepoint came into the room at that moment, dressed