I took my place in the chair beside her as hastily as possible, for there is nothing that I so much dislike as being made conspicuous for any reason whatever; and my thanks to her were, I fear, less gracious in their manner than should have been the case.  Nor did she find me, I must suppose, as companionable during this excursion—­during the first part of it, at any rate—­as a limpid-looking bride, who has kept at some pains a seat beside her for a single gentleman, has the right to expect; the brief hours of this morning had fed my preoccupation too richly, and I must often have fallen silent.

The horrible little tug, or ferry, or wherry, or whatever its contemptible inconvenience makes it fitting that this unclean and snail-like craft should be styled, cast off and began to lumber along the edges of the town with its dense cargo of hats and parasols and lunch parcels.  We were a most extraordinary litter of man and womankind.  There was the severe New England type, improving each shining hour, and doing it in bleak costume and with a thoroughly northeast expression; there were pink sunbonnets from (I should imagine) Spartanburg, or Charlotte, or Greenville; there were masculine boots which yet bore incrusted upon their heels the red mud of Aiken or of Camden; there was one fat, jewelled exhalation who spoke of Palm Beach with the true stockyard twang, and looked as if she swallowed a million every morning for breakfast, and God knows how many more for the ensuing repasts; she was the only detestable specimen among us; sunbonnets, boots, and even ungenial New England proved on acquaintance kindly, simple, enterprising Americans; yet who knows if sunbonnets and boots and all of us wouldn’t have become just as detestable had we but been as she was, swollen and puffy with the acute indigestion of sudden wealth?

This reflection made me charitable, which I always like to be, and I imparted it to the bride.

“My!” she said.  And I really don’t know what that meant.

But presently I understood well why people endured the discomfort of this journey.  I forgot the cinders which now and then showered upon us, and the heat of the sun, and the crowded chairs; I forgot the boat and myself, in looking at the passing shores.  Our course took us round Kings Port on three sides.  The calm, white town spread out its width and length beneath a blue sky softer than the tenderest dream; the white steeples shone through the enveloping brightness, taking to each other, and to the distant roofs beneath them, successive and changing relations, while the dwindling mass of streets and edifices followed more slowly the veering of the steeples, folded upon itself, and refolded, opened into new shapes and closed again, dwindling always, and always white and beautiful; and as the far-off vision of it held the eye, the few masts along the wharves grew thin and went out into invisibility, the spires became as masts, the distant drawbridge through which we had passed sank down into a mere stretching line, and shining Kings Port was dissolved in the blue of water and of air.