s a very different thing from outward
bound, and every soul on board had some dear one waiting for them in Old
England, some one who had loved them faithfully through the years of
absence, and who was even now counting the days until their return. The
mothers boasted to each other concerning the doings of the children whom
they had left at school, and in the midst of laughter turned aside
suddenly to conceal their tears; the men thought lovingly of the wives
from whom they had parted years before; and one or two radiant
bridegrooms exhibited photographs of the brides whom they were going to
carry back to cheer their exile.

After a fortnight at sea the company on board this particular steamer
might be said to be divided into four distinct cliques--namely, members
of military and diplomatic services, Civil Service employees, second-
class passengers, and--Miss Mariquita Saville. The young lady must be
taken as representing a class by herself, because while each of the
other divisions kept, or was kept, severely to itself, Peggy mixed
impartially with all, and was received with equal cordiality wherever
she turned. The little person had made such a unique position for
herself that there is no doubt that if a vote had been taken to discover
the most popular person on board, she would have headed the list by a
large majority; but whether her unfailing affability was due more to
pride or humility, Hector Darcy, among others, found it difficult to
determine.

Major Darcy had attached himself to the Saville party with a
determination hardly to be expected in so languid a man, had even
lowered his dignity to the extent of asking the fellow-passenger who
occupied the coveted seat at table to exchange places with himself, so
that breakfast, lunch, and dinner found him seated at Peggy's side,
finding ever-fresh surprises in her society. Sometimes the surprise was
the reverse of pleasant, for Miss Saville was a prickly little person,
and upon occasion would snap him up in the middle of an argument with a
lack of respect which took away his breath. When any difference arose
between them, she never seemed to have a shadow of a doubt that she was
in the right, and as Hector was equally positive about his own position,
relationships frequently grew so strained that Peggy would rise from the
table half-way through the meal, and stalk majestically out of the
saloon. She invariably repented her hastiness by the time she reached
th