He dressed by the light of a sputtering candle before a small mirror the veracity of which was more than questionable. It presented him to himself as a person with a broad, flat face, the nose of which appeared directly between his eyes, and the mouth on a line with the top of his ears. But he made allowances for these idiosyncrasies on the part of the mirror; in fact, he made such liberal allowances that he was quite satisfied with the reflection. "I'll procure the hack to bring the company back in," he said to Aunt Tish rather nervously as he passed through the kitchen. "You assist Miss Kippy to get arranged, and I'll carry up the coal and set the table after I return back home. I can do it while the company is up in his room." All the way into town, as he splashed along the muddy road, he was alternately dreading the arrival of one passenger, and anticipating joyfully, the arrival of another. For as the time approached the impending presence of the company began to take ominous form, and Mr. Opp grew apprehensive. At the landing he found everything dark and quiet. Evidently the packet was unusually late, and the committee appointed to meet it and conduct the guests to their various destinations was waiting somewhere uptown, probably at Your Hotel. Mr. Opp paused irresolute: his soul yearned for solitude, but the rain-soaked dock offered no shelter except the slight protection afforded by a pile of empty boxes. Selecting the driest and largest of these, he turned it on end, and by an adroit adjustment of his legs, succeeded in getting inside. Below, the river rolled heavily past in the twilight, sending up tiny juts of water to meet the pelting rain. A cold, penetrating mist clung to the ground, and the wind carried complaining tales from earth to heaven. Everything breathed discomfort, but Mr. Opp knew it not. His soul was sailing sunlit seas of bliss, fully embarked at last upon the most magic and immortal of all illusions. Sitting cramped and numb in his narrow quarters, he peered eagerly into the darkness, watching for the first lights of the _Sunny South_ to twinkle through the gloom. And as he watched he chanted in a sing-song ecstasy: "She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red." X When Miss Guinevere Gusty tripped up the gang-plank of the _Sunny South_ late that afternoon, vainly trying to protect herself from the driving rain, she was met half-way by the gallant old captain. Tradition had it that the captain had once cast a favorable eye upon her mother; but Mrs. Gusty, being cross-eyed, had looked elsewhere.