"I wish you to see and know about things like these," I replied, "but not such things as Melissa Daggett would show you."
"Melissy Daggett, indeed!" cried Winnie. "This beats all her stories. She tried to tell me the other day about a theatre at which a woman killed a man—"
"Horrid! I hope you didn't listen?"
"Only long enough to know the man came to life again, and danced in the next—"
"That will do. I'm not interested in Melissa's vulgar stories. As you say, this, and all like this, is much better, and will never prevent you from becoming a lady like mamma."
Winnie's ambition to become a lady promised to be one of my strong levers in uplifting her character.
I confess that I did not like the looks of the sky or of the snow-flakes that began to whirl in the air, but the strong steamer plowed her way rapidly past the city and the villa-crowned shores beyond. The gloom of the storm and of early coming night was over all, and from the distant western shores the Palisades frowned dimly through the obscurity.
My wife came, and after a brief glance shivered and was turning away, when I said, "You don't like your first glimpse of the country, Winifred?"
"It will look different next June. The children will take cold here.
Let them come and watch the machinery."
This we all did for a time, and then I took them on excursions about the enclosed parts of the boat. The lamps were already lighted, and the piled-up freight stood out in grotesque light and shadow.