ters of the
Bay of Bengal, along which a P and O steamer was gliding on its homeward
way. An awning was hoisted over the deck, but not a breath of wind
fluttered its borders, and the passengers lay back in their deck-chairs
too limp and idle to do more than flick over the pages of the books
which they were pretending to read. It was only twenty-four hours since
they had left Calcutta, and they were still in that early stage of
journeying when they looked askance at their fellows, decided that
never, no, never had Fate placed them in the midst of such uninteresting
companions, and determined to keep severely to themselves during the
rest of the voyage.

The stout lady in the white _pique_ stared stonily at the thin lady in
drill, and decided that she was an "Impossible Person," blissfully
unconscious of the fact that before Aden was reached she would pour all
her inmost secrets into the "Impossible Person's" ear, and weep salt
tears at parting from her at Marseilles. The mother of the sickly
little girls in muslin swept them away to the other end of the deck when
she discovered them playing with the children who inhabited the next
state-room, and the men stared at one another stolidly across the
smoking-room. The more experienced travellers knew that ere a week had
passed the scene would be changed, that a laughing babel of voices would
succeed the silence, and deck sports and other entertainments take the
place of inaction; but the younger members of the party saw no such
alleviation ahead, and resigned themselves to a month of frosty
solitude.

The ladies dozed amongst their cushions, but the men strolled up and
down the deck smoking their cigars with that air of resigned dejection
which seems to be the monopoly of Englishmen of the upper classes. The
quick movements, animated gestures, and sparkling eyes of the Southerner
were all lacking in these strongly built, well-dressed, well-set-up men,
who managed to conceal all signs of animation so successfully that no
one looking at them could have believed that one was the wit of his
regiment, another celebrated throughout an Indian province for his
courage and daring, and a third an expectant bridegroom!

About eleven o'clock a diversion was made on the upper deck by the
appearance of two more travellers--an elegant-looking woman accompanied
by her husband, who came forward in search of the deck-chairs which had
been placed in readiness for their use. They were n