"When first I went on board, Good Lord! what a racket, Such babbling and squalling fore and aft through the packet; The passengers bawling, the sailors yo-ho-ing, The ship along dashing, the wind aloft blowing; Some sick, and some swearing, some singing, some shrieking, Sails hoisting, blocks rattling, the yards and booms creaking!" It was that season of the year in which such of the Irish bipeds as are birds of passage, pay a summer's visit to their native shores: the packet was crowded to excess; and not only every birth was taken, but the cabin floors were spread with mattresses for the supernumeraries. Mrs. Sullivan had secured the _state_ cabin, where people pay an additional price, for the honour and glory of encountering imminent danger of suffocation, in a commodious apartment, six feet broad by eight feet long, containing four beds, two above and two below; and in this receptacle of pride, many a repentant victim of human vanity has sent forth pious aspirations after "_a new birth_." Mrs. Sullivan, on going below, found that, besides the beds in the state cabin, only two others could be procured for Caroline and the maids; she however settled the matter, much to her satisfaction, by saying, "Willis must sit up all night." But Adelaide seeing the poor woman's face changing colour, with a compassion that never rose for an _inferior_ in Mrs. Sullivan's breast, said, "If you will allow me, I will make up a bed for myself in the floor of your cabin, with the night sacks and dressing boxes; and then Willis can have my birth; she looks very sick, poor thing, perhaps you will give her leave to go to bed now." "I have no dejection to your doing what you likes with your own birth, Miss Vildenheim; but if Villis goes to bed, what can I do to undress?"--"Oh! I will be your waiting woman with pleasure." So saying, Adelaide seized the golden opportunity before the permission could be recalled, and persuaded the fainting Willis to occupy her bed.