dock and wharf, instead of breakfasting at their own table, and smoothly
bowling down the asphalt on to the ferryboat, and so to the very foot of
the gangway at the ship's side, all in the cool of the early morning. But
though he had now the cool of the early morning on these conditions,
there was by no means enough of it.

The sun was already burning the life out of the air, with the threat of
another day of the terrible heat that had prevailed for a week past; and
that last breakfast at home had not been gay, though it had been lively,
in a fashion, through Mrs. March's efforts to convince her son that she
did not want him to come and see them off. Of, her daughter's coming all
the way from Chicago there was no question, and she reasoned that if he
did not come to say good-by on board it would be the same as if they were
not going.

"Don't you want to go?" March asked with an obscure resentment.

"I don't want to seem to go," she said, with the calm of those who have
logic on their side.

As she drove away with her husband she was not so sure of her
satisfaction in the feint she had arranged, though when she saw the
ghastly partings of people on board, she was glad she had not allowed her
son to come. She kept saying this to herself, and when they climbed to
the ship from the wharf, and found themselves in the crowd that choked
the saloons and promenades and passages and stairways and landings, she
said it more than once to her husband.

She heard weary elders pattering empty politenesses of farewell with
friends who had come to see them off, as they stood withdrawn in such