took part in the
talk, and told him how they had spent the time of her husband's rigorous
after-cure in Switzerland, and now he was going home much better than
they had expected. She said they had rather thought of spending the
winter in Europe, but had given it up because they were both a little
homesick. March confessed that this was exactly the case with his wife
and himself; and he had to add that Mrs. March was not very well
otherwise, and he should be glad to be at home on her account. The
recurrence of the word home seemed to deepen Eltwin's habitual gloom, and
Mrs. Eltwin hastened to leave the subject of their return for inquiry
into Mrs. March's condition; her interest did not so far overcome her
shyness that she ventured to propose a visit to her; and March found that
the fact of the Eltwins' presence on board did not agitate his wife. It
seemed rather to comfort her, and she said she hoped he would see all he
could of the poor old things. She asked if he had met any one else he
knew, and he was able to tell her that there seemed to be a good many
swells on board, and this cheered her very much, though he did not know
them; she liked to be near the rose, though it was not a flower that she
really cared for.

She did not ask who the swells were, and March took no trouble to find
out. He took no trouble to get a passenger-list, and he had the more
trouble when he tried at last; the lists seemed to have all vanished, as
they have a habit of doing, after the first day; the one that he made
interest for with the head steward was a second-hand copy, and had no one
he knew in it but the Eltwins. The social solitude, however, was rather
favorable to certain other impressions. There seemed even more elderly
people than there were on the Norumbia; the human atmosphere was gray and
sober; there was nothing of the gay expansion of the outward voyage;
there was little talking or laughing among those autumnal men who were
going seriously and anxiously home, with faces fiercely set for the
coming grapple; or necks meekly bowed for the yoke. They had eaten their
cake, and it had been good, but there remained a discomfort in the
digestion. They sat about in silence, and March fancied that the flown
summer was as dreamlike to each of them as it now was to him. He hated to
be of their dreary company, but spiritually he knew that he was of it;
and he vainly turned to cheer himself with the younger passengers. Some
matrons who wen