Their Wedding Journey | Page 6

of her bridal character.
"Isabel, you will be having your head on my shoulder, next," said he.
"Never!" she answered fiercely, recovering her distance with a start.
"But, dearest, if you do see me going to--act absurdly, you know, do
stop me."
"I'm very sorry, but I've got myself to stop. Besides, I didn't undertake
to preserve the incognito of this bridal party."
If any accident of the sort dreaded had really happened, it would not
have mattered so much, for as yet they were the sole occupants of the
waiting room. To be sure, the ticket-seller was there, and the lady who
checked packages left in her charge, but these must have seen so many
endearments pass between passengers,--that a fleeting caress or so
would scarcely have drawn their notice to our pair. Yet Isabel did not

so much even as put her hand into her husband's; and as Basil
afterwards said, it was very good practice.
Our temporary state, whatever it is, is often mirrored in all that come
near us, and our friends were fated to meet frequent parodies of their
happiness from first to last on this journey. The travesty began with the
very first people who entered the waiting-room after themselves, and
who were a very young couple starting like themselves upon a pleasure
tour, which also was evidently one of the first tours of any kind that
they had made. It was of modest extent, and comprised going to New
York and back; but they talked of it with a fluttered and joyful
expectation as if it were a voyage to Europe. Presently there appeared a
burlesque of their happiness (but with a touch of tragedy) in that kind
of young man who is called by the females of his class a fellow, and
two young women of that kind known to him as girls. He took a place
between these, and presently began a robust flirtation with one of them.
He possessed himself, after a brief struggle, of her parasol, and twirled
it about, as he uttered, with a sort of tender rudeness inconceivable
vapidities, such as you would expect from none but a man of the
highest fashion. The girl thus courted became selfishly unconscious of
everything but her own joy, and made no attempt to bring the other girl
within its warmth, but left her to languish forgotten on the other side.
The latter sometimes leaned forward, and tried to divert a little of the
flirtation to herself, but the flirters snubbed her with short answers, and
presently she gave up and sat still in the sad patience of uncourted
women. In this attitude she became a burden to Isabel, who was glad
when the three took themselves away, and were succeeded by a very
stylish couple--from New York, she knew as well as if they had given
her their address on West 999th Street. The lady was not pretty, and she
was not, Isabel thought, dressed in the perfect taste of Boston; but she
owned frankly to herself that the New-Yorkeress was stylish,
undeniably effective. The gentleman bought a ticket for New York, and
remained at the window of the office talking quite easily with the
seller.
"You couldn't do that, my poor Basil," said Isabel, "you'd be afraid."
"O dear, yes; I'm only too glad to get off without browbeating; though I
must say that this officer looks affable enough. Really," he added, as an
acquaintance of the ticket-seller came in and nodded to him and said

"Hot, to-day!" "this is very strange. I always felt as if these men had no
private life, no friendships like the rest of us. On duty they seem so like
sovereigns, set apart from mankind, and above us all, that it's quite
incredible they should have the common personal relations."
At intervals of their talk and silence there came vivid flashes of
lightning and quite heavy shocks of thunder, very consoling to our
friends, who took them as so many compliments to their prudence in
not going by the boat, and who had secret doubts of their wisdom
whenever these acknowledgments were withheld. Isabel went so far as
to say that she hoped nothing would happen to the boat, but I think she
would cheerfully have learnt that the vessel had been obliged to put
back to Newport, on account of the storm, or even that it had been
driven ashore at a perfectly safe place.
People constantly came and went in the waiting-room, which was
sometimes quite full, and again empty of all but themselves. In the
course of their observations they formed many cordial friendships and
bitter enmities upon the ground of personal appearance, or particulars
of dress, with people whom they saw for half a minute upon an average;
and they