“I could ask the captain, certainly, miss, though of course it's something we never do, and besides we have to set the ship to rights and go across again this evening.”
“Ask her what hotel she is going to, Salemina,” we suggested, “and let us drop her there, and put her in charge of the housekeeper; of course if it is only sea-sickness she will be all right in the morning.”
The girl's eyes were closed, but she opened them languidly as Salemina chafed her cold hands, and asked gently if we could not drive her to an hotel.
“Is—this—your—baggage?” she whispered.
“It is,” Salemina answered, somewhat puzzled.
“Then don't—leave me here, I am from Salem—myself,” whereupon without any more warning she promptly fainted away on the trunk.
The situation was becoming embarrassing. The assemblage grew larger, and a more interesting and sympathetic audience I never saw. To an Irish crowd, always warm-hearted and kindly, willing to take any trouble for friend or stranger, and with a positive terror of loneliness, or separation from kith and kin, the helpless creature appealed in every way. One and another joined the group with a “Holy Biddy! what's this at all?”
“The saints presarve us, is it dyin' she is?”
“Look at the iligant duds she do be wearin'.”
“Call the docthor, is it? God give you sinse! Sure the docthors is only a flock of omadhauns.”