come
that surely he won't think me a bother. Besides, when you think of it,
it was really very good of me to leave my home and all my friends and
brave the perils of the deep, to visit a brother in exile.

I wish I knew exactly when we shall arrive; this suspense is wearing.
One man told me we would be in on Wednesday, another said we would
miss the tide and not be in till Saturday. I asked the captain, but he
directed me to the barber, who, he said, knew everything--and indeed
there are very few things he doesn't know. He is a dignified figure
with a shiny curl on his forehead, and a rich Cockney accent, full
of information, generally, I must admit, strikingly inaccurate, but
bestowed with such an air. "I do believe him though I know he lies."

_13th_.

We are in the Hooghly and shall be in Kidderpore Dock to-morrow
morning early. Actually the voyage is at an end. I may as well finish
this letter and send it with the mail which leaves Calcutta to-morrow.
We can't pack, because Mrs. Albert Murray is occupying all the cabin
and most of the passage. We shall creep down when she is quite done
and put our belongings together.

Everyone is flying about writing luggage labels, and getting their
boxes up from the hold, and counting things. Curiously enough, I
am feeling rather depressed; the end of anything is horrid, even a
loathed sea-voyage. After all, it isn't a bad old ship, and the people
have been nice. To-night I am filled with kindness to everyone. Even
Mrs. Albert Murray seems to swim in a rosy and golden haze, and I am
conscious of quite an affection for her, though I expect, when in a
little I go down to the cabin and find her fussing and accusing us of
losing her things, I shall dislike her again with some intensity. We
have all laughed and played and groaned together, and now we part. No,
I _shan't_ say "Ships that pass in the night." Several people--mothers
whose babies I have held and others--have given me their cards and a
cordial invitation to go and stay with them for as long as I like.
They mean it now, I know, but in a month's time shall we even remember
each other's names?

It will be a real grief to part to-morrow from Mrs. Crawley and
Mrs. Wilmot. The dear women! I wish they had been going to stay in
Calcutta, but they go straight away up country. Are there, I wonder,
many such charming women in India? It seems improbable. I shall miss
all the people at our table: we have been such a gay company