The Princess Aline | Page 7

morning Nolan carried to the express office a box containing
two oil-paintings on small canvases. They were addressed to the man in
London who attended to the shipping and forwarding of Carlton's
pictures in that town.
There was a tremendous crowd on the New York. She sailed at the
obliging hour of eleven in the morning, and many people, in
consequence, whose affection would not have stood in the way of their
breakfast, made it a point to appear and to say goodbye. Carlton, for his
part, did not notice them; he knew by experience that the
attractive-looking people always leave a steamer when the whistle
blows, and that the next most attractive-looking, who remain on board,
are ill all the way over. A man that he knew seized him by the arm as

he was entering his cabin, and asked if he were crossing or just seeing
people off.
"Well, then, I want to introduce you to Miss Morris and her aunt, Mrs.
Downs; they are going over, and I should be glad if you would be nice
to them. But you know her, I guess?" he asked, over his shoulder, as
Carlton pushed his way after him down the deck.
"I know who she is," he said.
Miss Edith Morris was surrounded by a treble circle of admiring
friends, and seemed to be holding her own. They all stopped when
Carlton came up, and looked at him rather closely, and those whom he
knew seemed to mark the fact by a particularly hearty greeting. The
man who had brought him up acted as though he had successfully
accomplished a somewhat difficult and creditable feat. Carlton bowed
himself away, leaving Miss Morris to her friends, and saying that she
would probably have to see him later, whether she wished it or not. He
then went to meet the aunt, who received him kindly, for there were
very few people on the passenger list, and she was glad they were to
have his company. Before he left she introduced him to a young man
named Abbey, who was hovering around her most anxiously, and
whose interest, she seemed to think it necessary to explain, was due to
the fact that he was engaged to Miss Morris. Mr. Abbey left the steamer
when the whistle blew, and Carlton looked after him gratefully. He
always enjoyed meeting attractive girls who were engaged, as it left
him no choice in the matter, and excused him from finding out whether
or not that particular young woman was the one.
Mrs. Downs and her niece proved to be experienced sailors, and faced
the heavy sea that met the New York outside of Sandy Hook with
unconcern. Carlton joined them, and they stood together leaning with
their backs to the rail, and trying to fit the people who flitted past them
to the names on the passenger list.
"The young lady in the sailor suit," said Miss Morris, gazing at the top
of the smoke-stack, "is Miss Kitty Flood, of Grand Rapids. This is her
first voyage, and she thinks a steamer is something like a yacht, and

dresses for the part accordingly. She does not know that it is merely a
moving hotel."
"I am afraid," said Carlton, "to judge from her agitation, that hers is
going to be what the professionals call a`dressing-room' part. Why is
it," he asked, "that the girls on a steamer who wear gold anchors and
the men in yachting-caps are always the first to disappear? That man
with the sombrero," he went on, "is James M. Pollock, United States
Consul to Mauritius; he is going out to his post. I know he is the consul,
because he comes from Fort Worth, Texas, and is therefore admirably
fitted to speak either French or the native language of the island."
"Oh, we don't send consuls to Mauritius," laughed Miss Morris.
"Mauritius is one of those places from which you buy stamps, but no
one really lives or goes there."
"Where are you going, may I ask?" inquired Carlton.
Miss Morris said that they were making their way to Constantinople
and Athens, and then to Rome; that as they had not had the time to take
the southern route, they purposed to journey across the Continent direct
from Paris to the Turkish capital by the Orient Express.
"We shall be a few days in London, and in Paris only long enough for
some clothes," she replied.
"The trousseau," thought Carlton. "Weeks is what she should have
said."
The three sat together at the captain's table, and as the sea continued
rough, saw little of either the captain or his other guests, and were
thrown much upon the society of each other. They had innumerable
friends and interests in common; and Mrs. Downs, who had