pitcher of ice-water, quick, please!" and you do not find the half-hour
that he is gone very long.

If the ordinary wayfarer experiences so much pleasure from these things,
then imagine the infinite comfort of our wedding-journeyers, transported
from Broadway on that pitiless afternoon to the shelter and the quiet of
that absurdly palatial steamboat. It was not yet crowded, and by the
river-side there was almost a freshness in the air. They disposed of
their troubling bags and packages; they complimented the ridiculous
princeliness of their stateroom, and then they betook themselves to the
sheltered space aft of the saloon, where they sat down for the
tranquiller observance of the wharf and whatever should come to be seen
by them. Like all people who have just escaped with their lives from some
menacing calamity, they were very philosophical in spirit; and having got
aboard of their own motion, and being neither of them apparently the
worse for the ordeal they had passed through, were of a light,
conversational temper.

"What an amusingly superb affair!" Basil cried as they glanced through an
open window down the long vista of the saloon. "Good heavens! Isabel,
does it take all this to get us plain republicans to Albany in comfort
and safety, or are we really a nation of princes in disguise? Well, I
shall never be satisfied with less hereafter," he added. "I am spoilt for
ordinary paint and upholstery from this hour; I am a ruinous spendthrift,
and a humble three-story swell-front up at the South End is no longer the
place for me. Dearest,

'Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,'

never to leave this Aladdin's-palace-like steamboat, but spend our lives