Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/24

6 "Wait till to-morrow."

While Mat surveyed the steamer under the care of Devoted Being No. 10, who appeared to see them off, Lavinia arranged the state-room, stowing away all useless gear and laying forth dressing-gowns, slippers, pocket-handkerchiefs with an anguished smile. She had crossed the ocean twice, and was a wiser, sadder woman for it. At eight she turned in, and ten minutes later Amanda came aboard with a flock of gay friends. But no temptations of the flesh could lure the wary spinster from her den; for the night was rough and cold and the steamer a Babel of confusion.

"It's perfectly delightful! I wish you'd been there, Livy. We had supper, and songs, and funny stories, and all sorts of larks. There are quantities of nice people aboard, and we shall have a perfectly splendid trip. I shall be up bright and early, put on my scarlet stockings, my new boots, and pretty sea suit, and go in for a jolly day," said the ardent Matilda, as she came skipping down at midnight and fell asleep full of rosy visions of the joys of a