rs of age, of considerable personal
attractions, well-educated, and of a very gentle and amiable
disposition. She had been a governess in England, and had been engaged
by an agent to proceed to Australia to take a similar position in a
family out there; and it was, perhaps, the indifferent treatment which
she had received at the hands of her former employers that had caused
her tacitly to accept the alternative which Wilde's scheme offered her.
Be that as it may, she had apparently raised no protest when the scheme
was first mooted, nor subsequently. What sort of life she was really
looking forward to upon the island for which we were about to search I
do not believe that even she herself could have explained. Probably her
philosophy might have been expressed in the phrase: "Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof". She soon discovered, however, that the future
would not permit itself to be shelved in this offhand fashion; there
were certain problems that persisted in thrusting themselves upon her
notice with increasing frequency, and one of them was--marriage! The
idea of creating a Utopia necessarily included that of establishing the
home life and domestic happiness. There were two men in particular who
forced her to give some thought to this detail, one of whom was Wilde,
and the other an able seaman named Gurney--the latter quite as
remarkable a man in his way as was Wilde in his, though the ways of the
two men were totally dissimilar; for Gurney, while wonderfully popular
with his mates in the forecastle, was so entirely different from them in
every respect that they admiringly nicknamed him "The Swell", which will
perhaps enable the reader to make a mental sketch of him. He and Wilde
had both made formal proposals of marriage to Miss Hartley--the ceremony
to be performed as speedily as might be after our arrival at Utopia; but
she had thus far accepted neither, although, as might be expected, of
the two men she was rather disposed to favour Gurney. Wilde, however,
was not at all the sort of man to accept a rebuff tamely, indeed his
vanity was so stupendous that he could not understand another being
preferred before himself. He consequently plagued the poor girl so
persistently that at length, in desperation, she came aft to me, laying
all the circumstances before me, and begging my protection. I answered
by directing her to remove herself, bag and baggage, to the after cabin,
assigning to her one of th