finer than any Mrs. Hawkins had ever seen before.

As the hours dragged on the child lost heart, and cried so piteously for

her mother that it seemed to the Hawkinses that the moanings and the

wailings of the mutilated men and women in the saloon did not so strain

at their heart-strings as the sufferings of this little desolate

creature. They tried hard to comfort her; and in trying, learned to love

her; they could not help it, seeing how she clung, to them and put her

arms about their necks and found-no solace but in their kind eyes and

comforting words: There was a question in both their hearts--a question

that rose up and asserted itself with more and more pertinacity as the

hours wore on--but both hesitated to give it voice--both kept silence

--and--waited. But a time came at last when the matter would bear delay

no longer. The boat had landed, and the dead and the wounded were being

conveyed to the shore. The tired child was asleep in the arms of Mrs.

Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins came into their presence and stood without

speaking. His eyes met his wife's; then both looked at the child--and as

they looked it stirred in its sleep and nestled closer; an expression of

contentment and peace settled upon its face that touched the

mother-heart; and when the eyes of husband and wife met again, the

question was asked and answered.

When the Boreas had journeyed some four hundred miles from the time the

Hawkinses joined her, a long rank of steamboats was sighted, packed side

by side at a wharf like sardines, in a box, and above and beyond them

rose the domes and steeples and general architectural confusion of a

The Gilded Age