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The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been delivered, part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. The captain was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk was in his office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate could be heard below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; for if steamboat crews have a single principle,-and there are those who deny them any,-it is never to ship twice in succession on the same boat. It was too early yet for any but roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers; so early that even the river was still partly mist-covered; only in places could the swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along.

Captain!" A hand plucked at his elbow, as if not confident that the mere calling would secure attention. The captain turned. The mother of the little convent girl stood there, and she held the little convent girl by the hand. "I have brought her to see you," the woman said. "You were so kind-and she is so quiet, so still, all the time, I thought it would do her a pleasure. "

She spoke with an accent, and with embarrassment; otherwise one would have said that she was bold and assured enough.

"She don’t go nowhere, she don’t do nothing but make her crochet and her prayers, so I thought I would bring her for a little visit of ‘How d’ ye do’ to you. "

There was, perhaps, some inflection in the woman’s voice that might have made known, or at least awakened, the suspicion of some latent hope or intention, had the captain’s ear been fine enough to detect it. There might have been something in the little convent girl’s face, had his eye been more sensitive- a trifle paler, may-be, the lips a little tighter drawn, the blue ribbon a shade faded. He may have noticed that, but- And the visit of "How d’ ye do" came to an end. They walked down the stairway, the woman in front, the little convent girl-her hand released to shake hands with the captain- following, across the bared deck, out to the gangway, over to the middle of it. No one was looking, no one saw more than a flutter of white petticoats, a show of white stockings, as the little convent girl went under the water.

The roustabout dived, as the roustabouts always do, after the drowning, even at the risk of their good-for-nothing lives. The mate himself jumped overboard; but she had gone down in a whirlpool. Perhaps, as the pilot had told her whirlpools always did, it may have carried her through to the underground river, to that vast, hidden, dark Mississippi that flows beneath the one we see; for her body was never found.