the girl persisted.

The day ended with an entertainment in the saloon for one of the marine
charities which address themselves to the hearts and pockets of
passengers on all steamers. There were recitations in English and German,
and songs from several people who had kindly consented, and ever more
piano performance. Most of those who took part were of the race gifted in
art and finance; its children excelled in the music, and its fathers
counted the gate-money during the last half of the programme, with an
audible clinking of the silver on the table before them.

Miss Triscoe was with her father, and Mrs. March was herself chaperoned
by Mr. Burnamy: her husband had refused to come to the entertainment. She
hoped to leave Burnamy and Miss Triscoe together before the evening
ended; but Miss Triscoe merely stopped with her father, in quitting the
saloon, to laugh at some features of the entertainment, as people who
take no part in such things do; Burnamy stood up to exchange some
unimpassioned words with her, and then they said good-night.

The next morning, at five o'clock, the Norumbia came to anchor in the
pretty harbor of Plymouth. In the cool early light the town lay distinct
along the shore, quaint with its small English houses, and stately with
come public edifices of unknown function on the uplands; a country-seat
of aristocratic aspect showed itself on one of the heights; on another
the tower of a country church peered over the tree-tops; there were lines
of fortifications, as peaceful, at their distance, as the stone walls
dividing the green fields. The very iron-clads in the harbor close at
hand contributed to the amiable gayety of the scene under the pale blue
English sky, already broken with clouds from which the flush of the
sunrise had not quite faded. The breath of the land came freshly out over
the water; one could almost smell the grass and the leaves. Gulls wheeled
and darted over the crisp water; the tones of the English voices on the
tender were pleasant to the ear, as it fussed and scuffled to the ship's
side. A few score of the passengers left her; with their baggage they
formed picturesque groups on the tender's deck, and they set out for the
shore waving their hands and their handkerchiefs to the friends they left
clustering along the rail of the Norumbia. Mr. and Mrs. Leffers bade
March farewell, in the final fondness inspired by his having coffee with
them before they left the ship; they said