Meantime the Jocasta, as smoothly as before she was ignorant of how the
world wagged, slipped up the river with the tide; and the sun hung red
behind the forest of masts, burnishing a broad length of the serpentine
haven of the nations of the earth. A young Englishman returning home can
hardly look on this scene without some pride of kinship. Evan stood at
the fore part of the vessel. Rose, in quiet English attire, had escaped
from her aunt to join him, singing in his ears, to spur his senses:
'Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it beautiful? Dear old England!'

'What do you find so beautiful?' he asked.

'Oh, you dull fellow! Why the ships, and the houses, and the smoke, to
be sure.'

'The ships? Why, I thought you despised trade, mademoiselle?'

'And so I do. That is, not trade, but tradesmen. Of course, I mean
shopkeepers.'

'It's they who send the ships to and fro, and make the picture that
pleases you, nevertheless.'

'Do they?' said she, indifferently, and then with a sort of fervour, 'Why
do you always grow so cold to me whenever we get on this subject?'

'I cold?' Evan responded. The incessant fears of his diplomatic sister
had succeeded in making him painfully jealous of this subject. He turned
it off. 'Why, our feelings are just the same. Do you know what I was
thinking when you came up? I was thinking that I hoped I might never