When my master was on shipboard he enjoyed the sea even less than the free air of these broad stretches; for while he could cast an eye about and approve of something under the sky--perhaps a church steeple, or the color of a thatch which filled me with joy--he could not approve of anything aboard a ship. Indeed, it was pity to have no delight in cleaving the water, and in the far-off spouting of whales, to say nothing of a living world that rides in undulations. For my part, I loved even the creaking of a ship, and the uncertainty of ever coming to port, and the anxiety lest a black flag should show above every sail we passed. The slow progress of man from point to point in his experience, while it sometimes enrages, on the whole interests me; and the monotony of a voyage has a sweetness like the monotony of daily bread. I looked out of the grenier window upon the high road, and upon the June sun in the act of setting; for we had supped and gone early to rest after a hard day. Post horses were stamping underneath, all ready for some noble count who intended to make another stage of his journey before nightfall. Small obtrusive cares, such as the desire that my shoes should last well into Paris, mingled with joy in the smell of the earth at sunset, and the looking forward to seeing Madame de Ferrier again. I wrapped myself every night in the conviction that I should see her, and more freely than I had ever seen her in America. There was a noise of horses galloping, and the expected noble count arrived; being no other than De Chaumont with his post coaches. He stepped out of the first, and Ernestine stepped out of the second, carrying Paul. She took him to his mother. The door flew open, and the woman I adored received her child and walked back and forth with him. Annabel leaned out while the horses were changed. I saw Miss Chantry, and my heart misgave me, remembering her brother's prolonged lament at separation from her. He was, I trusted, already shut into one of those public beds which are like cupboards; for the day had begun for us at three of the morning. But if he chose to show himself, and fall upon De Chaumont for luxurious conveyance to Paris, I was determined that Skenedonk and I should not appear. I wronged my poor master, who told me afterwards he watched through a crack of the cupboard bed with his heart in his mouth.