Cincinnati and back, counting five days' stoppage in New Orleans. It
was a month to a day when the steamboat came puffing and blowing up to
the wharf again, like a stout dowager after too long a walk; and the
same scene of confusion was enacted, as it had been enacted twelve
times a year, at almost the same wharf for twenty years; and the
same calm, a death calmness by contrast, followed as usual the next
morning.

The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been delivered,
part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. The captain
was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk was in his
office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate could be heard
below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; for if steamboat
crews have a single principle,--and there are those who deny them
any,--it is never to ship twice in succession on the same boat. It was
too early yet for any but roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers;
so early that even the river was still partly mist-covered; only in
places could the swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along.

"Captain!" A hand plucked at his elbow, as if not confident that the
mere calling would secure attention. The captain turned. The mother of
the little convent girl stood there, and she held the little convent
girl by the hand. "I have brought her to see you," the woman said.
"You were so kind--and she is so quiet, so still, all the time, I
thought it would do her a pleasure."

She spoke with an accent, and with embarrassment; otherwise one would
have said that she was bold and assured enough.

"She don't go nowhere, she don't do nothing but make her crochet and