A Voyage of Consolation

A Voyage of Consolation

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Title: A Voyage of Consolation (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An American girl in London')
Author: Sara Jeannette Duncan
Release Date: June 1, 2005 [EBook #15966]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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VOYAGE OF CONSOLATION
BOOKS BY MRS. EVERARD COTES (SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN).
UNIFORM EDITION.
* * * * *
A Voyage of Consolation. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
His Honour, and a Lady. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
The Story of Sonny Sahib. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.
Vernon's Aunt. With many Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
A Daughter of To-Day. A Novel. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
A Social Departure. HOW ORTHODOCIA AND I WENT ROUND THE WORLD BY OURSELVES. With 111 Illustrations by F.H. TOWNSEND. 12mo. Paper, 75 cents; cloth, $1.75.
An American Girl in London. With 80 Illustrations by F.H. TOWNSEND. 12mo. Paper, 75 cents; cloth, $1.50.
The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib. With 37 Illustrations by F.H. TOWNSEND. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
* * * * *
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
[Illustration: "Jamais!" (see Page 156.)]

A VOYAGE OF CONSOLATION
(BEING IN THE NATURE OF A SEQUEL TO THE EXPERIENCES OF "AN AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON")
BY
SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN (MRS. EVERARD COTES)
AUTHOR OF
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE, AN AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON, A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY, VERNON's AUNT, THE STORY OF SONNY SAHIB, HIS HONOUR AND A LADY, ETC.
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1898
Copyright, 1897, 1898,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FACING PAGE
"Jamais!" Frontispiece
Momma was enjoying herself 36
"I expect you've seen these before" 45
Breakfast with Dicky Dod 99
"Are you paid to make faces?" 140
We followed the monks 169
Dicky shouted till the skeletons turned to listen 189
We were sitting in a narrow balcony 194
"I'm not a crowned head!" 208
"Do you see?" 256
Fervent apologies 265
"Whom are you going to marry?" 322

A VOYAGE OF CONSOLATION.
CHAPTER I.
It seems inexcusable to remind the public that one has written a book. Poppa says I ought not to feel that way about it--that he might just as well be shy about referring to the baking soda that he himself invented--but I do, and it is with every apology that I mention it. I once had such a good time in England that I printed my experiences, and at the very end of the volume it seemed necessary to admit that I was engaged to Mr. Arthur Greenleaf Page, of Yale College, Connecticut. I remember thinking this was indiscreet at the time, but I felt compelled to bow to the requirements of fiction. I was my own heroine, and I had to be disposed of. There seemed to be no alternative. I did not wish to marry Mr. Mafferton, even for literary purposes, and Peter Corke's suggestion, that I should cast myself overboard in mid-ocean at the mere idea of living anywhere out of England for the future, was autobiographically impossible even if I had felt so inclined. So I committed the indiscretion. In order that the world might be assured that my heroine married and lived happily ever afterwards, I took it prematurely into my confidence regarding my intention. The thing that occurred, as naturally and inevitably as the rain if you leave your umbrella at home, was that within a fortnight after my return to Chicago my engagement to Mr. Page terminated; and the even more painful consequence is that I feel obliged on that account to refer to it again.
Even an American man has his lapses into unreasonableness. Arthur especially encouraged the idea of my going to England on the ground that it would be so formative. He said that to gaze upon the headsman's block in the Tower was in itself a liberal education. As we sat together in the drawing-room--momma and poppa always preferred the sitting-room when Arthur was there--he used to gild all our future with the culture which I should acquire by actual contact with the hoary traditions of Great Britain. He advised me earnestly to disembark at Liverpool in a receptive and appreciative, rather than a critical and antagonistic, state of mind, to endeavour to assimilate all that was worth assimilating over there, remembering that this might give me as much as I wanted to do in the time. I remember he expressed himself rather finely about the only proper attitude for Americans visiting England being that of magnanimity, and about the claims of kinship, only once removed, to our forbearance and affection. He put me on my guard, so to speak, about