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Susan Lenox, Her Rise and Fall by David Graham Phillips
page 120 of 1239 (09%)
than any she had ever seen. She knew they must be the parlor and
dining and sleeping cars she had read about. And now they were
in the midst of a fleet of steamers and barges, and far ahead
loomed the first of Cincinnati's big suspension bridges,
pictures of which she had many a time gazed at in wonder. There
was a mingling of strange loud noises--whistles, engines, on the
water, on shore; there was a multitude of what seemed to her
feverish activities--she who had not been out of quiet
Sutherland since she was a baby too young to note things.

The river, the shores, grew more and more crowded. Susan's eyes
darted from one new object to another; and eagerly though she
looked she felt she was missing more than she saw.

"Why, Susan Lenox!" exclaimed a voice almost in her ear.

She closed her teeth upon a cry; suddenly she was back from
wonderland to herself. She turned to face dumpy, dressy Mrs.
Waterbury and her husband with the glossy kinky ringlets and the
long wavy mustache. "How do you do?" she stammered.

"We didn't know you were aboard," said Mrs. Waterbury, a silly,
duck-legged woman looking proudly uncomfortable in her
bead-trimmed black silk.

"Yes--I'm--I'm here," confessed Susan.

"Going to the city to visit?"

"Yes," said Susan. She hesitated, then repeated, "Yes."
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