The August night was dark, and Beacon Street, with its double chain of lighting, appeared to be a foreshortened desert. Because everyone was out of town, it's possible that the servants were profaning the tables in their excess of leisure. A leisurely passage-which at that time of year would probably also be a lovely one-was a guarantee of ten to twelve days of fresh air because America was sweltering and England would very well be stuffy. It was also clear that one was old and the other was young, and that their differences did not preclude them from becoming mother and daughter. One of the guests in Mrs. Nettlepoint's home described how low Mr. Mavis Porterfield had been; the other, a young girl, was too upset by the thought of being left alone with her frail, maybe terminally ill father to care for him. The Patagonia was slow but spacious and comfortable, and there was motherly decency in her long nursing rock and her rustling old-fashioned gait. It seems as though she didn't want to arrive in port with the splashing enthusiasm of a youthful creature.
