The less said of a dull sea voyage, the better; to Madam Wallingford and her young companion their slow crossing to the port of Bristol could be but a long delay. Each day of the first week seemed like a week in passing, though from very emptiness it might be but a moment in remembrance; time in itself being like money in itself,—nothing at all unless changed into action, sensation, material. At first, for these passengers by the Golden Dolphin, there was no hope of amusement of any sort to shorten the eventless hours. Their hearts were too heavy with comfortless anxieties. The sea was calm, and the May winds light but steady from the west. It was very warm for the season of year, and the discouragements of early morning in the close cabin were easily blown away by the fresh air of the quarter-deck. The captain, a well-born man, but diffident in the company of ladies, left his vessel’s owner and her young companion very much to themselves. Mary had kept to a sweet composure and uncomplainingness, for her old friend’s sake, but she knew many difficult hours of regret and uncertainty now that, having once taken this great step, Madam Wallingford appeared to look to her entirely for support and counsel, and almost to forget upon how great an adventure they had set forth. All Mary’s own cares and all her own obligations and beliefs sometimes rose before her mind, as if in jealous arraignment of her presence on the eastward-moving ship. Yet though she might think of her brother’s displeasure and anxiety, and in the darkest moments of all might call herself a deserter, and count the slow hours of a restless night, when morning came, one look at Madam Wallingford’s pale face in the gray light of their cabin was enough to reassure the bravery of her heart. In still worse hours of that poor lady’s angry accusation of those whom she believed to be their country’s enemies, Mary yet found it possible to be patient, as we always may be when Pity comes to help us; there was ever a final certainty in her breast that she had not done wrong,—that she was only yielding to an inevitable, irresistible force of love. Love itself had brought her out of her own country. Often they sat pleasantly together upon the deck, the weather was so clear and fine, Mary being always at Madam Wallingford’s feet on a stout little oaken footstool, busy with her needle to fashion a warmer head-covering, or to work at a piece of slow embroidery on a strip of linen that Peggy had long ago woven on their own loom. Often the hearts of both these women, who were mistresses of great houses and the caretakers of many dependents, were full of anxious thought of home and all its business.