“Have you no brothers or sisters now?” questioned Donald.
“No, none; so, you see, it would be a shame if I didn't try to be all the comfort I could; and now you know all there is about me.”
“Why, no, I don't,” said Donald, surprised, folding his hands behind his head by way of a change of position; “I don't know where you live, or where you are going, or how you came to know Mr. Hartley, or what you are going to do this summer;” whereupon Marie-Celeste straightway proceeded to give all the desired information, and more besides.
Watchful Chris thought he began to detect signs of weariness in Donald's occasional answers, and as soon as he felt sure of it he bundled Marie-Celeste off in a hurry, and pinning a shawl over the port-hole, left the little convalescent for a nap undisturbed in his darkened state-room.
And now you have at least an idea of how Marie-Celeste passed her time on the steamer, and you can understand how there might have been some people rather less glad than sorry when they felt the machinery stop at two o'clock one morning, and knew that the Queenstown passengers were being transferred to the tender, and that before sunset all the people aboard the great steamer would be separated to the four winds. Chris was sorry, because he had looked forward with so much pleasure to the voyage across with Marie-Celeste, and it had all so far exceeded his expectations.
Donald was sorry, because he never had met “such lovely people” as the Harrises and Mr. Hartley, and never expected to again, and I half believe Mr. Belden was sorriest of all. He was going right up to his club in London, to lead the same old loveless, self-centred life, and somehow the glimpse of something very different he had had through Marie-Celeste made it appear more vapid and colorless than ever. But the steamer did not mind how any of her passengers were feeling—she must make the best possible record, no matter who was glad or sorry; and on she steamed, past lonely and beautiful Holyhead, and then through the wide Irish Sea (that seems indeed a veritable ocean in its wideness), until land once more was sighted and the harbor reached, and the anchor dropped off the wonderful docks at Liverpool. And then, in a few moments, the tender that was to land them was bearing down upon them, and a handsome, eager-faced little fellow, in an Eton jacket, was standing as far forward as possible in her bow, and an older fellow, who resembled the younger one closely, was standing, I am happy to say, close beside him.