It was the hour when the life of the island rises to the fever point; the hour of the arrival of the steamers from England. All day long the town had droned and dosed under a drowsy heat. The boatmen and carmen, with both hands in their breeches’ pocket, had been burning the daylight on the esplanade; the band on the pier had been blowing music out of lungs that snored between every other blast; and the visitors had been lolling on the seats of the parade and watching the sea gulls disporting on the bay with eyes that were drawing straws. But the first trail of smoke had been seen across the sea by the point of the lighthouse, and all the slugs and marmots were wide awake: promenade deserted, streets quiet and pothouses empty; but every front window of every front house occupied, and the pier crowded with people looking seaward. “She’s the Snaefell?” “No, but the Ben-my-Chree--see, she has four funnels.” Then, the steaming up, the firing of the gun, the landing of the passengers, the mails and newspapers, the shouting of the touts, the bawling of the porters, the salutations, the welcomes, the passings of the time of day, the rattling of the oars, the tinkling of the trams, and the cries of the newsboys: “This way for Castle Mona!” “Falcon Cliff this way!” “Echo!” “Evening Express!” “Good passage, John?” “Good.” “Five hours?” “And ten minutes.” “What news over the water?” “They’ve caught him.” “Never.” “Express!” “Fort Anne here--here for Villiers.” “Comfortable lodgings, sir.” “Take a card, ma’am.” “What verdict d’ye say?” “She’s got ten years.” “Had fine weather in the island?” “Fine.” “Echo! Evening Echo!” “Fort Anne this way!” “Gladstone in Liverpool?” “Yes, spoke at Hengler’s last night--fearful crush.” “Castle Mona!” “Evening News!” “Peveril!” “This way Falcon Cliff!” “Ex-press!” Thus, leaving the pier and the steamers behind them, through the streets and into the hotels, the houses, the cars, and the trains go, the new comers, and the newspapers, and the letters from England, all hot and active, bringing word of the main land, with its hub-bub and hurly-burly, to the island that has been four-and-twenty hours cut off from it--like the throbbing and bounding globules of fresh blood fetching life from the fountain-head to some half-severed limb. It is an hour of tremendous vitality, coming once a day, when the little island pulsates like a living thing. But that evening, as always since the time of the separation, Mrs. Quiggin was unmoved by it. With a book in her hand she was sitting by the open window fingering the pages, but looking listlessly over the tops of them to the line of the sea and sky, and asking herself if she should not go home to her father’s house on the morrow. She had reached that point of her reverie at which something told her that she should, and something else told her that she should not, when down came Jenny Crow upon her troubled quiet, like the rush of an evening breeze.