“I’d rather get to Fall River six hours behind time than go to perdition on time.”
Only the reporters on board knew, and it had been given to them on condition that they should not repeat it there, how near to destruction they had been; and the captain, with manly delicacy and honor, had refrained from pointing out Miss Butler to them as the heroine, thus saving her from the torture of being interviewed.
At breakfast Captain Smith was very polite and attentive to our heroine, but as he was always polite to all his passengers that did not expose her.
At last the noble steamer, much to the joy of all on board, and of friends and agents on shore, made her port, and ran into her regular wharf.
“Miss Butler,” said the captain, “when you return to New York please take passage on my boat, and if you purchase a ticket I shall feel hurt. The complimentary card, which contains my name, will pass you on the railroad at all times, and I want you to think how much I owe you when you do me the real favor to accept it.”
He was escorting her from the boat to the cars when he said this, and she could not refuse to accept his card, whether she ever used it or not.
In five minutes more the cars bore the glad passengers toward the city so often called the “Hub”—I hardly understand why.
And now I must draw a sorrowful picture there. In a chamber in one of the most pretentious houses on Beacon Hill, in the city of Boston, a lady hardly past middle age, who must in health have been very beautiful, lay dying.
A minister, two physicians, and several weeping friends were near, and the former was speaking words which he hoped would comfort her, or lessen the agony of that dread moment.
The physicians had endeavored to get her to take an opiate to lessen her pains, which were wearing her out, but she would not, but kept crying out: