her (as she knew, though he did not) powerless. But, so far, he had said
none of these things. She was grateful to him for every moment of the
respite.

Thus they sat there, appearing no doubt to the other passengers a
sufficiently happy and noticeably fortunate pair.

For Winthrop had about him a certain look which, in America, confers
distinction--that intangible air that belongs to the man who, well
educated to begin with, has gone forth into the crowded course, and
directed and carried along his fortunes by his own genius and energy to
the goal of success. It is a look of power restrained, of comprehension;
of personal experience, personal knowledge; not theory. The unsuccessful
men who met Winthrop--this very steamer carried several of them--were
never angry with him for his good-fortune; they could see that he had
not always been one of the idle, though he might be idle now; they could
see that he knew that life was difficult, that he had, as they would
have expressed it, "been through it himself," and was not disposed to
underrate its perplexities, its oppressions. They could see, too, not a
few of them, poor fellows! that here was the man who had not allowed
himself to dally with the inertia, the dilatoriness, the self-indulgent
weakness, folly, or worse, which had rendered their own lives so
ineffectual. They envied him, very possibly; but they did not hate him;
for he was not removed from them, set apart from them, by any bar; he
was only what they might themselves have been, perhaps; at least what
they would have liked to be.

And the women on board all envied Margaret. They thought her very fair
as she sat there, her eyes resting vaguely on the water, her cheeks
showing a faint, fixed flush, the curling waves of her hair rippling
back in a thick mass above the little ear. Everything she wore was so
beautiful, too--from the hat, with its waving plume, and the long soft
gloves, to the rich shawl, which lay where it had fallen over the back
of her chair. They were sure that she was happy, because she looked so
fortunate; any one of them would have changed places with her blindly,
without asking a question.

The steamer stopped at the long pier which was adorned with the little
post-office. The postmaster had made a dim illumination within his
official shanty by means of a lantern, and here Margaret waited while
the boat was made ready by the negroes who were to row them down the
five additional miles of c