when the plank was withdrawn. The men on shore cast off the
great loops of ropes that held the boat to enormous wooden
posts on the wharf, and they were off!

At first it seemed to Ellen as if the wharf and the people
upon it were sailing away from them backwards; but she
presently forgot to think of them at all. She was gone! — she
felt the bitterness of the whole truth; — the blue water
already lay between her and the shore, where she so much
longed to be. In that confused mass of buildings at which she
was gazing, but which would be so soon beyond even gazing
distance, was the only spot she cared for in the world; her
heart was there. She could not see the place, to be sure, nor
tell exactly whereabouts it lay in all that wide-spread city;
but it was there, somewhere — and every minute was making it
farther and farther off. It's a bitter thing, that sailing
away from all one loves; and poor Ellen felt it so. She stood
leaning both her arms upon the rail, the tears running down
her cheeks, and blinding her so that she could not see the
place towards which her straining eyes were bent. Somebody
touched her sleeve — it was Timmins.

"Mrs. Dunscombe sent me to tell you she wants you to come into
the cabin, Miss."

Hastily wiping her eyes, Ellen obeyed the summons, and
followed Timmins into the cabin. It was full of groups of
ladies, children, and nurses — bustling and noisy enough.
Ellen wished she might have stayed outside; she wanted to be
by herself; but, as the next best thing, she mounted upon the