as a married sister in
Rochester and that her husband is all right; in fact, George was down
there as recently as eight years ago. Oh, it's the most American town
imaginable is Mariposa,--on the fourth of July.

But wait, just wait, if you feel anxious about the solidity of the
British connection, till the twelfth of the month, when everybody is
wearing an orange streamer in his coat and the Orangemen (every man in
town) walk in the big procession. Allegiance! Well, perhaps you remember
the address they gave to the Prince of Wales on the platform of the
Mariposa station as he went through on his tour to the west. I think
that pretty well settled that question. So you will easily understand
that of course everybody belongs to the Knights of Pythias and the
Masons and Oddfellows, just as they all belong to the Snow Shoe Club and
the Girls' Friendly Society.

And meanwhile the whistle of the steamer has blown again for a quarter
to seven:--loud and long this time, for any one not here now is late
for certain; unless he should happen to come down in the last fifteen
minutes.

What a crowd upon the wharf and how they pile on to the steamer! It's a
wonder that the boat can hold them all. But that's just the marvellous
thing about the Mariposa Belle.

I don't know,--I have never known,--where the steamers like the Mariposa
Belle come from. Whether they are built by Harland and Wolff of Belfast,
or whether, on the other hand, they are not built by Harland and Wolff
of Belfast, is more than one would like to say offhand.

The Mariposa Belle always seems to me to have some of those strange
properties that distinguish Mariposa itself. I mean, her size seems to
vary so. If you see her there in the winter, frozen in the ice beside
the wharf with a snowdrift against the windows of the pilot house, she
looks a pathetic little thing the size of a butternut. But in the summer
time, especially after you've been in Mariposa for a month or two, and
have paddled alongside of her in a canoe, she gets larger and taller,
and with a great sweep of black sides, till you see no difference
between the Mariposa Belle and the Lusitania. Each one is a big steamer
and that's all you can say.

Nor do her measurements help you much. She draws about eighteen inches
forward, and more than that,--at least half an inch more, astern, and
when she's loaded down with an excursion crowd she draws a good two
inches more. And above the water,--why, look at