ainfully. I was very glad to turn away,
and come below again.

"I have established myself, from the first, in the ladies' cabin--you
remember it? I'll describe its other occupants, and our way of passing
the time, to you.

"First, for the occupants. Kate and I, and Anne--when she is out of bed,
which is not often. A queer little Scotch body, a Mrs. P--,[44] whose
husband is a silversmith in New York. He married her at Glasgow three
years ago, and bolted the day after the wedding; being (which he had not
told her) heavily in debt. Since then she has been living with her
mother; and she is now going out under the protection of a male cousin,
to give him a year's trial. If she is not comfortable at the expiration
of that time, she means to go back to Scotland again. A Mrs. B--, about
20 years old, whose husband is on board with her. He is a young
Englishman domiciled in New York, and by trade (as well as I can make
out) a woolen-draper. They have been married a fortnight. A Mr. and Mrs.
C--, marvelously fond of each other, complete the catalogue. Mrs. C--, I
have settled, is a publican's daughter, and Mr. C-- is running away with
her, the till, the time-piece off the bar mantel-shelf, the mother's
gold watch from the pocket at the head of the bed; and other
miscellaneous property. The women are all pretty; unusually pretty. I
never saw such good faces together, anywhere."

Their "way of passing the time" will be found in the _Notes_ much as it
was written to me; except that there was one point connected with the
card-playing which he feared might overtax the credulity of his readers,
but which he protested had occurred more than once: "Apropos of rolling,
I have forgotten to mention that in playing whist we are obliged to put
the tricks in our pockets, to keep them from disappearing altogether;
and that five or six times in the course of every rubber we are all
flung from our seats, roll out at different doors, and keep on rolling
until we are picked up by stewards. This has become such a matter of
course, that we go through it with perfect gravity, and, when we are
bolstered up on our sofas again, resume our conversation or our game at
the point where it was interrupted." The news that excited them from day
to day, too, of which little more than a hint appears in the _Notes_, is
worth giving as originally written:

"As for news, we have more of that than you would think for. One man
lost fourteen pounds at vingt-un in