She did not think it necessary ever to explain him to others; perhaps she would not have found it possible; and now after she parted from Mrs.Eltwin and went to sit down beside Mrs.March she did not refer to her father.

She said how sweet she had found the old lady from Ohio; and what sort of place did Mrs.March suppose it was where Mrs.Eltwin lived?
They seemed to have everything there, like any place.

She had wanted to ask Mrs.
Eltwin if they sat on their steps; but she had not quite dared.
Burnamy came by, slowly, and at Mrs.March's suggestion he took one of the chairs on her other side, to help her and Miss Triscoe look at the Channel Islands and watch the approach of the steamer to Cherbourg, where the Norumbia was to land again.

The young people talked across Mrs.March to each other, and said how charming the islands were, in their gray-green insubstantiality, with valleys furrowing them far inward, like airy clefts in low banks of clouds.

It seemed all the nicer not to know just which was which; but when the ship drew nearer to Cherbourg, he suggested that they could see better by going round to the other side of the ship.