notion
of it--Rachel a Tory hostess!--and marvelling as she left him at the
astonishing ignorance of a father.

Rachel, when consulted, showed less enthusiasm than Helen could have
wished. One moment she was eager, the next doubtful. Visions of a great
river, now blue, now yellow in the tropical sun and crossed by bright
birds, now white in the moon, now deep in shade with moving trees and
canoes sliding out from the tangled banks, beset her. Helen promised a
river. Then she did not want to leave her father. That feeling seemed
genuine too, but in the end Helen prevailed, although when she had
won her case she was beset by doubts, and more than once regretted
the impulse which had entangled her with the fortunes of another human
being.

Chapter VII

From a distance the _Euphrosyne_ looked very small. Glasses were turned
upon her from the decks of great liners, and she was pronounced a tramp,
a cargo-boat, or one of those wretched little passenger steamers where
people rolled about among the cattle on deck. The insect-like figures
of Dalloways, Ambroses, and Vinraces were also derided, both from the
extreme smallness of their persons and the doubt which only strong
glasses could dispel as to whether they were really live creatures or
only lumps on the rigging. Mr. Pepper with all his learning had been
mistaken for a cormorant, and then, as unjustly, transformed into a
cow. At night, indeed, when the waltzes were swinging in the saloon, and
gifted passengers reciting, the little ship--shrunk to a few beads
of light out among the dark waves, and one high in air upon the
mast-head--seemed something mysterious and impressive to heated partners
resting from the dance. She became a ship passing in the night--an
emblem of the loneliness of human life, an occasion for queer
confidences and sudden appeals for sympathy.

On and on she went, by day and by night, following her path, until one
morning broke and showed the land. Losing its shadow-like appearance it
became first cleft and mountainous, next coloured grey and purple, next
scattered with white blocks which gradually separated themselves, and
then, as the progress of the ship acted upon the view like a field-glass
of increasing power, became streets of houses. By nine o'clock the
_Euphrosyne_ had taken up her position in the middle of a great bay;
she dropped her anchor; immediately, as if she were a recumbent giant
requiring examination, small boats came sw