it, and looked into the eyes of his son, who was laughing at his
shoulder. He said that he had to come down with a good-by letter from his
sister, which he made an excuse for following them; but he had always
meant to see them off, he owned. The letter had just come with a special
delivery stamp, and it warned them that she had sent another good-by
letter with some flowers on board. Mrs. March scolded at them both, but
with tears in her eyes, and in the renewed stress of parting which he
thought he had put from him, March went on taking note, as with alien
senses, of the scene before him, while they all talked on together, and
repeated the nothings they had said already.

A rank odor of beet-root sugar rose from the far-branching sheds where
some freight steamers of the line lay, and seemed to mingle chemically
with the noise which came up from the wharf next to the Norumbia. The
mass of spectators deepened and dimmed away into the shadow of the roofs,
and along their front came files of carriages and trucks and carts, and
discharged the arriving passengers and their baggage, and were lost in
the crowd, which they penetrated like slow currents, becoming clogged and
arrested from time to time, and then beginning to move again.

The passengers incessantly mounted by the canvas-draped galleries
leading, fore and aft, into the ship. Bareheaded, blue-jacketed,
brass-buttoned stewards dodged skillfully in and out among them with
their hand-bags, holdalls, hat-boxes, and state-room trunks, and ran
before them into the different depths and heights where they hid these
burdens, and then ran back for more. Some of the passengers followed them
and made sure that their things were put in the right places; most of
them remained wedged among the earlier comers, or pushed aimlessly in and
out of the doors of the promenades.