o far himself, but you men never know how to take
steps for any one else. You can't put two and two together. But to my
mind it's as plain as the nose on his face that he's seen that girl
somewhere and is taking this trip because she's on board. He said he
hadn't decided to come till the last moment."

"What wild leaps of fancy!" I said. "But the nose on his face is
handsome rather than plain, and I sha'n't be satisfied till I see him
with the lady."

"Yes, he's quite Greek," said Mrs. March, in assent to my opinion of his
nose. "Too Greek for a clergyman, almost. But he isn't vain of it. Those
beautiful people are often quite modest, and Mr. Glendenning is very
modest."

"And I'm very hungry. If you don't hurry your prinking, Isabel, we shall
not get any dinner."

"I'm ready," said my wife, and she continued with her eyes still on the
glass: "He's got a church out in Ohio, somewhere; but he's a
New-Englander, and he's quite wild to get back. He thinks those people
are from Boston: I could tell in a moment if I saw them. Well, now, I
_am_ ready," and with this she really ceased to do something to her
hair, and came out into the long saloon with me where the table was set.
Rows of passengers stood behind the rows of chairs, with a detaining
grasp on nearly all of them. We gazed up and down in despair. Suddenly
Mrs. March sped forward, and I found that Mr. Glendenning had made a
sign to her from a distant point, where there were two vacant chairs for
us next his own. We eagerly laid hands on them, and waited for the gong
to sound for dinner. In this interval an elderly lady followed by a
young girl came down the saloon toward us, and I saw signs, or rather
emotions, of intelligence pass between Mr. Glendenning and Mrs. March
concerning them.

The older of these ladies was a tall, handsome matron, who bore her
fifty years with a native severity qualified by a certain air of wonder
at a world which I could well fancy had not always taken her at her own
estimate of her personal and social importance. She had the effect of
challenging you to do less, as she advanced slowly between the wall of
state-rooms and the backs of the people gripping their chairs, and eyed
them with a sort of imperious surprise that they should have left no
place for her. So at least I read her glance, while I read in that of
the young lady coming after, and showing her beauty first over this
shoulder and then over that of her mother, chiefly a p