We congratulated ourselves that we should at least have a night of
delightful sleep on the steamboat in the quiet of this secluded
harbor. But it was wisely ordered otherwise, to the end that we
should improve our time by an interesting study of human nature.
Towards midnight, when the occupants of all the state-rooms were
supposed to be in profound slumber, there was an invasion of the
small cabin by a large and loquacious family, who had been making an
excursion on the island railway. This family might remind an
antiquated novel-reader of the delightful Brangtons in "Evelina;"
they had all the vivacity of the pleasant cousins of the heroine of
that story, and the same generosity towards the public in regard to
their family affairs. Before they had been in the cabin an hour, we
felt as if we knew every one of them. There was a great squabble as
to where and how they should sleep; and when this was over, the
revelations of the nature of their beds and their peculiar habits of
sleep continued to pierce the thin deal partitions of the adjoining
state-rooms. When all the possible trivialities of vacant minds
seemed to have been exhausted, there followed a half-hour of
"Goodnight, pa; good-night, ma;" "Goodnight, pet;" and "Are you
asleep, ma?" "No." "Are you asleep, pa?" "No; go to sleep, pet.
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