As he said these last words he shook Corancez's hand with that simple seriousness which he showed for everything. His companion had touched him deeply. Doubtless this simplicity and candid trustfulness embarrassed the Southerner. He was very willing to profit from them, but he felt a little ashamed at abusing too much this loyal nature, whose charm he also felt, and he mingled with his thanks a confession such as he had never before made to any one. "Don't think me so exuberant. The sun always has that effect. But, in truth, we men of the South never say what we mean.--Here we are. Remember," he said, with his finger on his lips, "Miss Marsh knows all, Marsh knows nothing." "One word more," Hautefeuille replied; "I have promised to be your groomsman. But you will permit me to go to Genoa another way? I don't know these people well enough to accept an invitation of that kind." "I trust to Flossie Marsh to overcome your scruples," said Corancez, unable to repress a smile. "You will be one of the passengers on the _Jenny_. Do you know why this boat is called the _Jenny_? Only an Anglo-Saxon would permit himself seriously such a play upon words. You have heard of Jenny Lind, the singer? Well, the reason the facetious Marsh gave this pretty name to his floating villa was _because she keeps the high seas_. And every time he explains this he is so amazed at his wit that he fairly chokes with laughter.--But what a delicious day." The elegant lines of the _Jenny's_ rigging and white hull could now be seen close at hand. She seemed the young, coquettish queen of the little port, amid the fishing boats, yawls, and coasters that swarmed about the quay. A group of sailors on the stone curb sang while they mended their nets. On the ground-floor of the houses were offices of ship companies, or shops, stored with provisions and tackle. The working population, totally absent from this city of leisure, is concentrated upon the narrow margin of the port, and gives it that popular picturesqueness so refreshing in contrast with the uniform banality imprinted on the South by its wealthy visitors. It was doubtless an unconscious sense of that contrast that led the plebeian Marsh to choose this point of the roadstead. This self-made man who also had labored on the quays at Cleveland, by the shores of Lake Erie, whose waters are more stormy than the Mediterranean, despised at heart the vain and vapid society in which he lived. He lived in it, however, because the cosmopolitan aristocracy was still another world to conquer.