“Well, but I hope,” said I, rousing myself from a reverie of some minutes, and inadvertently pressing the arm which leaned upon me—­“your mamma will not be alarmed at our long absence?”

“Oh! not in the least; for she knows I’m with you.”

And here I felt a return of the pressure—­perhaps also inadvertently given, but which, whether or not, effectually set all my reasonings and calculations astray; and we returned to the hotel, silent on both sides.

The appearance of la chere mamma beside the hissing tea-urn brought us both back to ourselves; and, after an hour’s chatting, we wished good night, to start on the morrow for the continent.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CALAIS.

It was upon a lovely evening in autumn, as the Dover steam-boat rounded the wooden pier at Calais, amid a fleet of small boats filled with eager and anxious faces, soliciting, in every species of bad English and “patois” [vulgar] French, the attention and patronage of the passengers.

“Hotel de Bain, mi lor’.”

“Hotel d’Angleterre,” said another, in a voice of the most imposing superiority.  “C’est superbe—­pretty well.”

“Hotel du Nord, votre Excellence—­remise de poste and ‘delays’ (quere relays) at all hours.”

“Commissionaire, mi ladi,” sung out a small shrill treble from the midst of a crowded cock-boat, nearly swamped beneath our paddle-wheel.

What a scene of bustle, confusion, and excitement does the deck of a steamer present upon such an occasion.  Every one is running hither or thither.  “Sauve qui peut” is now the watch-word; and friendships, that promised a life-long endurance only half an hour ago, find here a speedy dissolution.  The lady who slept all night upon deck, enveloped in the folds of your Astracan cloak, scarcely deigns an acknowledgment of you, as she adjusts her ringlets before the looking-glass over the stove in the cabin.  The polite gentleman, that would have flown for a reticule or a smelling-bottle upon the high seas, won’t leave his luggage in the harbour; and the gallantry and devotion that stood the test of half a gale of wind and a wet jacket, is not proof when the safety of a carpet-bag or the security of a “Mackintosh” is concerned.

And thus here, as elsewhere, is prosperity the touchstone of good feeling.  All the various disguises which have been assumed, per viaggio, are here immediately abandoned, and, stripped of the travelling costume of urbanity and courtesy, which they put on for the voyage, they stand forth in all the unblushing front of selfishness and self-interest.

Some tender scenes yet find their place amid the debris of this chaotic state.  Here may be seen a careful mother adjusting innumerable shawls and handkerchiefs round the throat of a sea-green young lady with a cough; her maid is at the same instant taking a tender farewell of the steward in the after-cabin.