God bless that stewardess for her piously fraudulent account of 
January voyages!  God bless her for her clear recollection of the 
companion passage of last year, when nobody was ill, and everybody 
dancing from morning to night, and it was 'a run' of twelve days, 
and a piece of the purest frolic, and delight, and jollity!  All 
happiness be with her for her bright face and her pleasant Scotch 
tongue, which had sounds of old Home in it for my fellow-traveller; 
and for her predictions of fair winds and fine weather (all wrong, 
or I shouldn't be half so fond of her); and for the ten thousand 
small fragments of genuine womanly tact, by which, without piecing 
them elaborately together, and patching them up into shape and form 
and case and pointed application, she nevertheless did plainly show 
that all young mothers on one side of the Atlantic were near and 
close at hand to their little children left upon the other; and 
that what seemed to the uninitiated a serious journey, was, to 
those who were in the secret, a mere frolic, to be sung about and 
whistled at!  Light be her heart, and gay her merry eyes, for 
years!

The state-room had grown pretty fast; but by this time it had 
expanded into something quite bulky, and almost boasted a bay-
window to view the sea from.  So we went upon deck again in high 
spirits; and there, everything was in such a state of bustle and 
active preparation, that the blood quickened its pace, and whirled 
through one's veins on that clear frosty morning with involuntary 
mirthfulness.  For every gallant ship was riding slowly up and 
down, and every little boat was splashing noisily in the water; and 
knots of people stood upon the wharf, gazing with a kind of 'dread 
delight' on the far-famed fast American steamer; and one party of 
men were 'taking in the milk,' or, in other words, getting the cow 
on board; and another were filling the icehouses to the very throat 
with fresh provisions; with butchers'-meat and garden-stuff, pale 
sucking-pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and 
poultry out of all proportion; and others were coiling ropes and 
busy with oakum yarns; and others were lowering heavy packages into 
the hold; and the purser's head was barely visible as it loomed in 
a state, of exquisite perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of 
passengers' luggage; and there seemed to be nothing going on 
anywhere, or uppermost in the mind of anybody, but preparations for 
this mighty voyage.  This, with the bright cold sun, the bracing 
air, the crisply-curling water, the thin white crust of morning ice 
upon the decks which crackled with a sharp and cheerful sound 
beneath the lightest tread, was irresistible.  And when, again upon 
the shore, we turned and saw from the vessel's mast her name 
signalled in flags of joyous colours, and fluttering by their side 
the beautiful American banner with its stars and stripes, - the 
long three thousand miles and more, and, longer still, the six 
whole months of absence, so dwindled and faded, that the ship had 
gone out and come home again, and it was broad spring already in 
the Coburg Dock at Liverpool.

I have not inquired among my medical acquaintance, whether Turtle, 
and cold Punch, with Hock, Champagne, and Claret, and all the 
slight et cetera usually included in an unlimited order for a good 
dinner - especially when it is left to the liberal construction of 
my faultless friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi Hotel - are 
peculiarly calculated to suffer a sea-change; or whether a plain 
mutton-chop, and a glass or two of sherry, would be less likely of 
conversion into foreign and disconcerting material.  My own opinion 
is, that whether one is discreet or indiscreet in these 
particulars, on the eve of a sea-voyage, is a matter of little 
consequence; and that, to use a common phrase, 'it comes to very 
much the same thing in the end.'  Be this as it may, I know that 
the dinner of that day was undeniably perfect; that it comprehended 
all these items, and a great many more; and that we all did ample 
justice to it.  And I know too, that, bating a certain tacit 
avoidance of any allusion to to-morrow; such as may be supposed to 
prevail between delicate-minded turnkeys, and a sensitive prisoner 
who is to be hanged next morning; we got on very well, and, all 
things considered, were merry enough.

When the morning - THE morning - came, and we met at breakfast, it 
was curious to see how eager we all were to prevent a moment's 
pause in the conversation, and how astoundingly gay everybody was:  
the forced spirits of each member of the little party having as 
much likeness to his natural mirth, as hot-house peas at five 
guineas the quart, resemble in flavour the growth of the dews, and 
air, and rain of Heaven.  But as one o'clock, the hour for going 
aboard, drew near, this volubility dwindled away by little and 
little, despite the most persevering efforts to the contrary, until 
at last, the matter being now quite desperate, we threw off all 
disguise; openly speculated upon where we should be this time to-
morrow, this time next day, and so forth; and entrusted a vast 
number of messages to those who intended returning to town that 
night, which were to be delivered at home and elsewhere without 
fail, within the very shortest possible space of time after the 
arrival of the railway train at Euston Square.  And commissions and 
remembrances do so crowd upon one at such a time, that we were 
still busied with this employment when we found ourselves fused, as 
it were, into a dense conglomeration of passengers and passengers' 
friends and passengers' luggage, all jumbled together on the deck 
of a small steamboat, and panting and snorting off to the packet, 
which had worked out of dock yesterday afternoon and was now lying 
at her moorings in the river.

And there she is! all eyes are turned to where she lies, dimly 
discernible through the gathering fog of the early winter 
afternoon; every finger is pointed in the same direction; and 
murmurs of interest and admiration - as 'How beautiful she looks!' 
'How trim she is!' - are heard on every side.  Even the lazy