I.--THE MORNING.


They were not a large family, and their pursuits and habits were very
simple; yet the summer was lapsing toward the first pathos of autumn
before they found themselves all in such case as to be able to take the
day's pleasure they had planned so long. They had agreed often and often
that nothing could be more charming than an excursion down the Harbor,
either to Gloucester, or to Nahant, or to Nantasket Beach, or to Hull and
Hingham, or to any point within the fatal bound beyond which is
seasickness. They had studied the steamboat advertisements, day after day,
for a long time, without making up their minds which of these charming
excursions would be the most delightful; and when they had at last fixed
upon one and chosen some day for it, that day was sure to be heralded by a
long train of obstacles, or it dawned upon weather that was simply
impossible. Besides, in the suburbs, you are apt to sleep late, unless the
solitary ice-wagon of the neighborhood makes a very uncommon rumbling in
going by; and I believe that the excursion was several times postponed by
the tardy return of the pleasurers from dreamland, which, after all, is
not the worst resort, or the least interesting--or profitable, for the
matter of that. But at last the great day came,--a blameless Thursday
alike removed from the cares of washing and ironing days, and from the
fatigues with which every week closes. One of the family chose
deliberately to stay at home; but the severest scrutiny could not detect a
hindrance in the health or circumstances of any of the rest, and the
weather was delicious. Everything, in fact, was so fair and so full of
promise, that they could almost fancy a calamity of some sort hanging over
its perfection, and possibly bred of it; for I suppose that we never have
anything made perfectly easy for us without a certain reluctance and