taking their hair out of curl-papers, and patting and smoothing and
rolling it upon little sticks and over little fingers until the curls
stood round and full, and ready for action.

Then the ship moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, from the wharf--so
slowly, so imperceptibly, that the people on board thought the city was
sliding away from them. The merchant saw the solid, trim, beautiful
vessel turn her bow southward and outward, and glide gently down the
river. Her hull was soon lost to his eyes, but he could see the streamer
fluttering at the mast-head over the masts of the other vessels. While
he looked it vanished--the ship was gone.

Often enough Mr. Lawrence Newt stood leaning his head against the
window-frame of his office after the ship had disappeared, and seemed
to be looking at the ferry-boats or at the lofty city of Brooklyn. But
he saw neither. Faster than ship ever sailed, or wind blew, or light
flashed, the thought of Lawrence Newt darted, and the merchant, seemingly
leaning against his office-window in South Street, was really sitting
under palm-trees, or dandling in a palanquin, or chatting in a strange
tongue, or gazing in awe upon snowier summits than the villagers of
Chamouni have ever seen.

And what was that dark little hand he seemed to himself to press?--and
what were those eyes, soft depths of exquisite darkness, into which
through his own eyes his soul seemed to be sinking?

There were clerks busily writing in the outer office. It was dark in
that office when Mr. Newt first occupied the rooms, and Thomas Tray, the
book-keeper, who had the lightest place, said that the eyes of Venables,
the youngest clerk, were giving out. Young Venables, a lad of sixteen,