The dreaded trial did not approach for several years after she had ceased
to be a bud; and then it came when her father was again willing to serve
his country in diplomacy, either at the Hague, or at Brussels, or even at
Berne. Reasons of political geography prevented his appointment anywhere,
but General Triscoe having arranged his affairs for going abroad on the
mission he had expected, decided to go without it. He was really very fit
for both of the offices he had sought, and so far as a man can deserve
public place by public service, he had deserved it. His pessimism was
uncommonly well grounded, and if it did not go very deep, it might well
have reached the bottom of his nature.

His daughter had begun to divine him at the early age when parents
suppose themselves still to be mysteries to their children. She did not
think it necessary ever to explain him to others; perhaps she would not
have found it possible; and now after she parted from Mrs. Eltwin and
went to sit down beside Mrs. March she did not refer to her father. She
said how sweet she had found the old lady from Ohio; and what sort of
place did Mrs. March suppose it was where Mrs. Eltwin lived? They seemed
to have everything there, like any place. She had wanted to ask Mrs.
Eltwin if they sat on their steps; but she had not quite dared.

Burnamy came by, slowly, and at Mrs. March's suggestion he took one of
the chairs on her other side, to help her and Miss Triscoe look at the
Channel Islands and watch the approach of the steamer to Cherbourg, where
the Norumbia was to land again. The young people talked across Mrs. March
to each other, and said how charming the islands were, in their
gray-green insubstantiality, with valleys furrowing them far inward, like
airy clefts in low banks of clouds. It seemed all the nicer not to know
just which was which; but when the ship drew nearer to Cherbourg, he
suggested that they could see better by going round to the other side of