"I should think the end of October might do for them," he droned,
reflectively. "They can't mean to cut me off any shorter than that."
He saw the steamer taking on passengers between the two rotund
chestnut-trees that adorned the end of the stubby little stone pier.
Voices of shrieking gladness came across from the coffee-tables on the
terrace of the Three Crowns, his nearest neighbor to the right.
"Well, America is meeting me half way," he said; "I don't want to seem
reluctant myself. Suppose we make it Southampton, about October 15th?"
Truesdale Marshall had been away from home and friends for about the
length of time ordinarily required by a course through college, but it
was not at college that most of this period had been passed. He had left
Yale at the end of his sophomore year, and had taken passage, not for
Chicago, but for Liverpool, compromising thus his full claims on nurture
from an alma mater for the more alluring prospect of culture and
adventure on the Continent. This supplementary course of self-improvement
and self-entertainment had now continued for three years.
He had written back to his family at discreet intervals, his
communications not being altogether untinctured, it is true, by
considerations of a financial nature; and his sister Jane, who charged
herself with the preservation of this correspondence, would have
undertaken to reconstruct his route and to make a full report of his
movements up to date on ten minutes' notice.
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