and began to feel a personal interest in her, and all wanted the
little convent girl to see everything that she possibly could.

[Illustration: WATCHING A LANDING.]

And it was worth seeing--the balancing and _chasséeing_ and waltzing
of the cumbersome old boat to make a landing. It seemed to be
always attended with the difficulty and the improbability of a new
enterprise; and the relief when it did sidle up anywhere within
rope's-throw of the spot aimed at! And the roustabout throwing the
rope from the perilous end of the dangling gang-plank! And the
dangling roustabouts hanging like drops of water from it--dropping
sometimes twenty feet to the land, and not infrequently into the river
itself. And then what a rolling of barrels, and shouldering of sacks,
and singing of Jim Crow songs, and pacing of Jim Crow steps; and black
skins glistening through torn shirts, and white teeth gleaming through
red lips, and laughing, and talking and--bewildering! entrancing!
Surely the little convent girl in her convent walls never dreamed of
so much unpunished noise and movement in the world!

The first time she heard the mate--it must have been like the first
time woman ever heard man--curse and swear, she turned pale, and ran
quickly, quickly into the saloon, and--came out again? No, indeed!
not with all the soul she had to save, and all the other sins on her
conscience. She shook her head resolutely, and was not seen in her
chair on deck again until the captain not only reassured her, but
guaranteed his reassurance. And after that, whenever the boat was
about to make a landing, the mate would first glance up to the guards,
and if the little convent girl was sitting there he would change his
invective to sarcasm, and politely request the colored gentlemen not