ing to be smart; sometimes, at least with me,
it degenerates into rudeness. I told you about all the people at our
table, but I forgot one--a very aged man with a long white beard,
rather like the evil magician in the fairy tales, but most harmless.
"Old Sir Thomas Erpingham," I call him, for I am sure a good soft
pillow for that good grey head were better than the churlish turf of
India. He is very kind, and calls us Sunshine and Brightness, and pays
us the most involved Early Victorian compliments, which we, talking
and laughing all the time, seldom ever hear, and it is left to kind
Mrs. Wilmot to respond.

_Nov. 7_.

Last night we had an excitement. We got into a thick fog and had to
stand still and hoot, while something--a homeward-bound steamer, they
say--nearly ran us down. The people sleeping on deck said it was
most awesome, but I slept peacefully through it until awakened by an
American female running down the corridor and remarking at the top of
a singularly piercing voice, "Wal, I am scared!"

To-day it is beautifully calm and bright; the nasty, hot, damp wind
has gone; and we are sitting in our own little corner of the deck,
Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Wilmot, G., and I, sometimes reading, sometimes
writing, very often talking. It is luck for us to have two such
charming women to talk to. Mrs. Crawley is supposed to be my chaperon,
I believe I forgot to tell you that. Boggley, who is a great friend of
hers, wrote and asked her to look after me. How clever of him to fix
on one in every way so desirable! Suppose he had asked the Candle!

We have such splendid talks about books. Mrs. Wilmot has, I think,
read everything that has been written, also she is very keen about
poetry and has my gift--or is it a vice?--of being able to say great
pieces by heart, so between us G. is sometimes just a little bored.
You see, G. hasn't been brought up in a bookish atmosphere and that
makes such a difference. The other night she was brushing her hair,
unusually silent and evidently thinking deeply. At last she looked up
at me in my bunk, with the brush in her hand and all her hair swept
over one shoulder, and said in the most puzzled way, "What was that
nasty thing Mrs. Wilmot was saying all about dead women?" and do you
know what she objected to?

"Dear dead women, with such hair, too--
What's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I
Feel chilly and grown old."

We are very much worried by