An exciting and interesting day followed as, after stopping at Queenstown to leave the mails, they sped northeastward between shores which grew more distinct and beautiful with every hour,—on one side Ireland, on the other the bold mountain lines of the Welsh coast.
It was late afternoon when they entered the Mersey, and dusk had fallen before the Captain got out his glass to look for the white fluttering speck in his own window which meant so much to him.
Long he studied before he made quite sure that it was there.
At last he shut the glass with a satisfied air.
"It's all right," he said to Katy, who stood near, almost as much interested as he.
"Lucy never forgets, bless her!
Well, there's another voyage over and done with, thank God, and my Mary is where she was.
It's a load taken from my mind."
The moon had risen and was shining softly on the river as the crowded tender landed the passengers from the "Spartacus" at the Liverpool docks.
"We shall meet again in London or in Paris," said one to another, and cards and addresses were exchanged.
Then after a brief delay at the Custom House they separated, each to his own particular destination; and, as a general thing, none of them ever saw any of the others again.
It is often thus with those who have been fellow voyagers at sea; and it is always a surprise and perplexity to inexperienced travellers that it can be so, and that those who have been so much to each other for ten days can melt away into space and disappear as though the brief intimacy had never existed.
"Four-wheeler or hansom, ma'am?" said a porter to Mrs. Ashe.
"Which, Katy?"
"Oh, let us have a hansom!
I never saw one, and they look so nice in 'Punch.'"
So a hansom cab was called, the two ladies got in, Amy cuddled down between them, the folding-doors were shut over their knees like a lap-robe, and away they drove up the solidly paved streets to the hotel where they were to pass the night.
It was too late to see or do anything but enjoy the sense of being on firm land once more.
"How lovely it will be to sleep in a bed that doesn't tip or roll from side to side!" said Mrs. Ashe.
"Yes, and that is wide enough and long enough and soft enough to be comfortable!" replied Katy.
"I feel as if I could sleep for a fortnight to make up for the bad nights at sea."
Everything seemed delightful to her,—the space for undressing, the great tub of fresh water which stood beside the English-looking washstand with its ample basin and ewer, the chintz-curtained bed, the coolness, the silence,—and she closed her eyes with the pleasant thought in her mind,
"It is really England and we are really here!"
CHAPTER V.
STORYBOOK ENGLAND.
"Oh, is it raining?" was Katy's first question next morning, when the maid came to call her.
The pretty room, with its gayly flowered chintz, and china, and its brass bedstead, did not look half so bright as when lit with gas the night before; and a dim gray light struggled in at the window, which in America would certainly have meant bad weather coming or already come.
"Oh no, h'indeed, ma'am, it's a very fine day,—not bright, ma'am, but very dry," was the answer.
Katy couldn't imagine what the maid meant, when she peeped between the curtains and saw a thick dull mist lying over everything, and the pavements opposite her window shining with wet.
Afterwards, when she understood better the peculiarities of the English climate, she too learned to call days not absolutely rainy "fine," and to be grateful for them; but on that first morning her sensations were of bewildered surprise, almost vexation.
Mrs. Ashe and Amy were waiting in the coffee-room when she went in search of them.
"What shall we have for breakfast," asked Mrs. Ashe,—"our first meal in England?
Katy, you order it."
"Let's have all the things we have read about in books and don't have at home," said Katy, eagerly.
But when she came to look over the bill of fare there didn't seem to be many such things.
Soles and muffins she finally decided upon, and, as an after-thought, gooseberry jam.
"Muffins sound so very good in Dickens, you know," she explained to Mrs. Ashe; "and I never saw a sole."
The soles when they came proved to be nice little pan-fish, not unlike what in New England are called "scup."
All the party took kindly to them; but the muffins were a great disappointment, tough and tasteless, with a flavor about them as of scorched flannel.
"How queer and disagreeable they are!" said Katy.
"I feel as if I were eating rounds cut from an old ironing-blanket and buttered!
Dear me! what did Dickens mean by making such a fuss about them, I wonder?
And I don't care for gooseberry jam, either; it isn't half as good as the jams we have at home.
Books are very deceptive."
"I am afraid they are.
We must make up our minds to find a great many things not quite so nice as they sound when we read about them," replied Mrs. Ashe.
Mabel was breakfasting with them, of course, and was heard to remark at this juncture that she didn't like muffins, either, and would a great deal rather have waffles; whereupon Amy reproved her, and explained that nobody in England knew what waffles were, they were such a stupid nation, and that Mabel must learn to eat whatever was given her and not find fault with it!
After this moral lesson it was found to be dangerously near train-time; and they all hurried to the railroad station, which, fortunately, was close by.
There was rather a scramble and confusion for a few moments; for Katy, who had undertaken to buy the tickets, was puzzled by the unaccustomed coinage; and Mrs. Ashe, whose part was to see after the luggage, found herself perplexed and worried by the absence of checks, and by no means disposed to accept the porter's statement, that if she'd only bear in mind that the trunks were in the second van from the engine, and get out to see that they were safe once or twice during the journey, and call for them as soon as they reached London, she'd have no trouble,—"please remember the porter, ma'am!"
However all was happily settled at last; and without any serious inconveniences they found themselves established in a first-class carriage, and presently after running smoothly at full speed across the rich English midlands toward London and the eastern coast.