"How did you know?" asked he, smiling.
"Oh, papa, it couldn't be any thing else. I knew it in a minute."
After that, they were close to the sea almost all the way. Eyebright felt as if she could never be tired of watching the waves rise and fall, or of breathing the air, which seemed to fill and satisfy her like food though it made her hungry, too, and she was glad of the nice luncheon which Mr. Bury had packed up for them. But even pleasant things have a tiring side to them, and as night drew on, Eyebright began to think she should be as glad of bed as she had been of dinner.
Her heavy head had been nodding for some time, and had finally dropped upon papa's shoulder, when he roused her with a shake and said,—
"Wake up, Eyebright, wake up! Here we are."
"At the Island?" she asked, drowsily.
"No, not at the Island yet. This is the steamboat."
To see a steamboat had always been one of Eyebright's chief wishes, but she was too sleepy at that moment to realize that it was granted. Her feet stumbled as papa guided her down the stair; she could not keep her eyes open at all. The stewardess—a colored woman—laughed when she saw the half-awake little passenger; but she was very good-natured, whipped off Eyebright's boots, hat, and jacket, in a twinkling, and tucked her into a little berth, where in three minutes she was napping like a dormouse. There was a great deal of whistling and screeching and ringing of bells when the boat left her dock, heavy feet trampled over the deck just above the berth, the water lapped and hissed; but not one of these things did Eyebright hear, nor was she conscious of the rock-ing motion of the waves. Straight through them all she slept; and when at last she waked, the boat was no longer at sea, and there was hardly any motion to be felt.
It was not yet six o'clock. The shut-up cabin was dark and close, except for one ray of yellow sun, which straggled through a crack, and lay across the carpet like a long finger. It flickered, and seemed to beckon, as if it wanted to say, "Get up, Eyebright, it is morning at last; get up, and come out with me." She felt so rested and fresh that the invitation was irresistible; and slipping from the berth, she put on dress and boots, which were laid on a chair near by, tied the hat over her unbrushed hair, and with her warm jacket in hand, stole out of the cabin and ran lightly upstairs to the deck.
Then she gave a great start, and said, "Oh!" with mingled wonder and surprise; for, instead of the ocean which she had expected to see, the boat was steaming gently up a broad river. On either side was a bold, wooded shore. The trees were leafless still, for this was much farther north than Tunxet, but the rising sap had tinted their boughs with lovely shades of yellow, soft red, and pink-brown, and there were quantities of evergreens beside, so that the woods did not look cold or bare. Every half mile or so the river made a bend and curved away in a new direction. It was never possible to see far ahead, and, as the steamer swept through the clear green and silver water, it continually seemed that, a little farther on, the river came to end, and there was no way out except to turn back. But always when the boat reached the place where the end seemed to be, behold, a new reach of water, with new banks and tree-crowned headlands, appeared, so that their progress was a succession of surprises. Here and there were dots of islands too, just big enough to afford standing-room to a dozen pines and hemlocks, so closely crowded together that the trees next the edge almost seemed to be holding fast by their companions while they leaned over to look at their own faces in the water.