Simpson so
fair forgot herself as to say, "Yes, if they are nice." The ladies were
sitting on deck beside the pile of Laura's very superior cabin luggage.
Mrs. Simpson glanced at it as if it offered a kind of corroboration of
the necessity of their being nice. "There are always a few delightful
Christian people, if one takes the trouble to find them out, at this end
of the ship," she said, defensively. "I have never failed to find it
so."
"I don't think much of Christians who are so hard to discover," Laura
said, with decision, and Mrs. Simpson, rebuked, thought of the
mischievous nature of class prejudices. Laura herself--had she not been
drawn from what one might call distinctly the other end of the ship; and
who, among those who vaunted themselves ladies and gentlemen, could
compare with Laura? The idea that she had shown a want of sympathy with
those dear people who were so strenuously calling down a blessing on the
_Coromandel_ somewhere behind the smoke-stacks, embittered poor Mrs.
Simpson's remaining tears of farewell, and when the bell rang the signal
for the last good-bye she embraced her young friend with the fervent
request, "Do make friends with them, dear one--make friends with them at
once;" and Laura said, "If they will make friends with me.
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