Framed, like a picture, by the archway at the opposite end of this long aisle, lie the sparkling waters of the bay, with the swelling green hills beyond, and the little wheezy vessel which is to take us to Fort Sumter bobbing up and down by the pier. The little steamer, with the stars and stripes fluttering front the masthead, is puffing and blowing and making a great fuss, plunging head foremost, and shrieking like an angry virago for us to make haste, as she is in a hurry to get away. With the fresh breeze blowing in our faces, and the sun shining in our eyes, as only a Southern sun can shine, we step on board, and in another moment our brisk little convoy is dancing over the water like a joyous child released from school; it trembles and leaps like a living thing, and we almost fancy that its iron heart must be beating with a feeling of sentient enjoyment like our own. All kinds and conditions of men are crowded round us--high and low, rich and poor; evidently we are all out for a holiday, and in the most perfect _sang-froid_ fashion, and without the slightest ceremony, everybody talks to everybody else. A lady from the North sits beside me, and shading her complexion from the sun, softly drones into my ear her whole family history, from the birth of her first baby to the vaccination of her last. I learn that she is now travelling in search of health, and cannot find it--the farther she goes, the farther it flies from her. “And yet,” she murmurs plaintively, “I know it must sometimes be quite near me, if I could only lay my hands upon it.” She talked of health as a thing to be caught on the “hold fast” or “let go” principle. “It seems to be like a game of ‘hot boiled beans and butter,’” I remark somewhat flippantly, “only there is no one to tell you when you are growing ‘hot’ or ‘cold.’” Why will people afflict their fellow-travellers with the history of their family troubles or personal ailments, and so indulge in a luxury which is even forbidden to hospital patients! Our sympathies cannot be worked like a fire-engine; it is impossible for the most sympathetic to pump up a sudden interest in Jeremiah’s gout or Matilda’s inward complications, especially when there are beautiful scenes and delicious airs around you, which you may have come thousands of miles to enjoy; but there are some people to whom nothing is attractive or interesting outside of that great ogre “self.”