waved on board the steamboat responded to this salute as she went on her
way, leaving behind her a few broad undulations on the still and glassy
surface of the sea.

There were other vessels, each with its smoky cap, coming in from every
part of the horizon towards the short white jetty, which swallowed them
up, one after another, like a mouth. And the fishing barks and lighter
craft with broad sails and slender masts, stealing across the sky in tow
of inconspicuous tugs, were coming in, faster and slower, towards the
devouring ogre, who from time to time seemed to have had a surfeit, and
spewed out to the open sea another fleet of steamers, brigs, schooners,
and three-masted vessels with their tangled mass of rigging. The
hurrying steamships flew off to the right and left over the smooth bosom
of the ocean, while sailing vessels, cast off by the pilot-tugs which
had hauled them out, lay motionless, dressing themselves from the
main-mast to the fore-tops in canvas, white or brown, and ruddy in the
setting sun.

Mme. Roland, with her eyes half-shut, murmured: "Good heavens, how
beautiful the sea is!"

And Mme. Rosemilly replied with a long sigh, which, however, had no
sadness in it:

"Yes, but it is sometimes very cruel, all the same."

Roland exclaimed:

"Look, there is the Normandie just going in. A big ship, isn't she?"