listening with you to the monotone of
the great Pacific, whose 'ever, forever' is more significant to me than
to most lovers of its music. I never gaze upon its restless waves, nor
hear the sound of their ripple on the sands, or their thunder on the
rocks without being reminded of one episode in my life peculiarly
agitating to remember; but perhaps when I have told it to you, you may
have power to exercise the restless spirit which rises in me at the
recollection."

So here was promise of the intellectual aliment I had begun to crave
after all these weeks of physical, without mental, action. I folded my
letter with a feeling of self-congratulation, and turned to watch the
movements of a newly arrived party for whom our half-breed host was
spreading a tent, and placing in it rather an extra amount of furniture;
for, be it known to the uninitiated, we had platform floors under our
tents, real bedsteads, dressing-bureaus, rugs, and other comforts to
match. That our new arrival exceeded us in elegant conveniences was, of
course, duly noted by such idlers as we.

The party consisted of a lady, a little girl of ten, and a Kanaka
servant. The lady's name, we learned, was Mrs. Sancy, and she was from
the Sandwich Islands. More than that no one was informed. We discussed
her looks, her manners, her dress, and her probable circumstances, as we
sat around the camp-fire that evening, after the way of idle people. It
occurred to me, as I glanced toward her tent door, illuminated by our
blazing fire, and saw her regarding the weird scene with evident
admiration of its picturesqueness, to ask her to come and sit with us
and help us eat roast potatoes--roasted as they cook pigs in the
Islands, by covering up in the ground with hot stones. The fact that the
potatoes, and the butter which went with them, were purloined from our
host's larder, gave a special flavor to the feast--accompanied as it
was, too, by instrumental and vocal music, and enlivened by sallies of
wit.

Mrs. Sancy seemed to enjoy the novelty of her surroundings, contributing
her quota to the general fund of mirth and sparkling talk, and I
congratulated myself on having acquired an interesting acquaintance,
whose cheerfulness, notwithstanding the partial mourning of her dress,
promised well for its continuance. Had she been sad or reserved she
certainly would not have been sought as she was by our pleasure-loving
summer idlers, consequently my chances of becoming int