They certainly enjoyed
it far better than the spectators. There were four long tables, all
crowded, but when the main was started the other tables were deserted
and the passengers packed around ours.

Our opposite neighbors were two Sisters of Charity who were on their way
to the City of Mexico to fill a gap that death had made in the ranks of
their order there. They were simple, sainted souls and had never known
any life other than the religious, and never emerged from the cloister
save only to do deeds of mercy in the country town outside. They had
been selected by lot to go to Mexico. We were favored to become fast
friends of theirs, and I was glad to have them accept such attentions as
we could give. It was delightful to meet such simple, unsophisticated
people under circumstances when, they being travelers, the rules of the
Church permitted them to throw off their reserve, to associate with
strangers and to live--so far as food and drink were concerned--like the
people they were associated with for the time.

My wife and I grew to like them well, and I was never tired of getting
their views of men and things. Truly their lives were a thing apart from
the world and the ways of men. They told me with a kind of rapture that
the average life of one of their order in Mexico was only five years,
and they thought heaven had been very gracious in selecting them, that
they might give their lives to the Church and so become members of the
mighty army of martyrs who were honored in heaven by looking upon the
face of the Virgin and her Son and serving them.

They knew nothing of wines and did not suspect the costliness of those
which during the entire voyage they drank at my expense.

The dinners were rather formal affairs and occupied an hour and a half,
and between the good sisters and us two we always finished a bottle of
claret and two of champagne, and about a like quantity between dinner
and bedtime. I don't believe that up to the hour they left the world
they ever quite understood why they were so happy and merry on that
voyage.

We used to visit the steerage forward nearly every day. There was an
unmistakable lady so unfortunate as to be a passenger there. She
appreciated our visits, and eventually confided the story of her life to
my wife, and what a story it was of woman's love and man's perfidy!

I had an electric battery which I frequently took into the steerage to
astonish the natives. When I first put a sil