Early in the morning he arose from a sleepless couch, to find all the officers and hands on the boat engaged in receiving last freight and passengers, while the engine was getting up her steam to be off. Mark Sutherland finished his morning toilet, and went out upon the guards, just as the boat was beginning to move from the wharf. The usual crowd of idlers, porters, and loafers, stood upon the shore, watching her departure. And Mark Sutherland fixed himself in a favourable position for watching the receding wharf of what might be called his native village, when the figure of a fat man, in white linen jacket and trousers, with his light hair blowing free behind his rosy face, waving a straw hat, came running desperately towards the wharf. The boat arrested her motions, the plank was thrown out, and Uncle Billy followed by a man with his trunk and portmanteau, stepped on board. Panting and blowing, and wiping his face, he hastened up to Mr. Sutherland, exclaiming, “My dear boy! I liked to have missed you! Near as possible! Wouldn’t have lost you for the world, my dearest lad! Stick to you as long as I live, Mark, for your dear mother, my sister’s sake! Whew! _Whew-ew!_ what a chase I’ve had! Only heard this morning, from Clement, that you were going by the Victress! Running ain’t good for me. Dangerous!” And so, talking and shaking his nephew’s hand, and wiping his own rosy face, and blowing and panting, Mr. Bolling at last sat down, and began to fan himself with his broad-brimmed straw hat. Mark Sutherland received his relative’s demonstrations of attachment as best he might; he welcomed him, and went to the captain’s office to see if he could secure a state-room for his enforced travelling companion; and by the time he had successfully accomplished his errand, the passengers were summoned to the breakfast table, and the boat had cleared the wharf and was well under way up the Mississippi. It was a slow voyage up the river, and on the afternoon of the twelfth day the steamer arrived at the wharf of Shelton. Mark Sutherland wished, if possible, to get rid of his troublesome travelling companion for a few hours, while he could go home quietly, and have an uninterrupted meeting and talk with his dear Rosalie. So, leaving all their baggage in the care of the clerk of the boat, Mark drew Uncle Billy’s fat arm within his own, and conducted him to Col. Garner’s hotel, to a private parlour, containing a comfortable lounge and easy chair. Here he ordered a luncheon of cold ham, fowl, sardines, pickled oysters, and next all the late newspapers the house could muster; and having seen them all arranged upon the table, to which the easy chair was drawn up, and while Uncle Billy stretched his lazy length upon the lounge, Mr. Sutherland turned to Mr. Bolling, and said— “And now, Uncle Billy, can you excuse me, and make yourself comfortable, while I run down to Rosalie and prepare her for your arrival?”