ind
you, it's all my eye to talk about consumption, but her best friend
couldn't say as she was strong. Oh, dear, I do wisht I hadn't left her."

For half an hour the thin girl argued with Marcella--a very one-sided
argument--explaining in detail that her sister could not possibly have
consumption, but that the doctor who had refused to pass her as an
emigrant must have had a spite against her--simply must have had.
Otherwise why didn't he pass her? What was it to him? Marcella was very
sympathetic but quite unhelpful, and after a while got away and went
below to arrange her things in her cabin.

It fascinated her; it was quite the smallest thing she had ever seen,
much smaller than Wullie's hut, and the shining whiteness of the new
enamel particularly appealed to her, though the smell of it was not very
pleasing. The clamps that held the water-bottle and glass gave an
exhilarating hint of rough weather; the top bunk, about on the level of
her eyes, promised thrilling acrobatic feats at bedtime, and she decided
to sleep in that one, leaving the other as a receptacle for her baggage.

In her preparations she lost sight of the lunch hour, and the bell and
the sound of feet scurrying down the companion way meant nothing to her.
But at three o'clock something extraordinarily exciting happened; she
heard the sharp "ting-ting" of a bell, and the ship began to palpitate
as if a great heart were beating within it. She hurried on deck as the
siren began to cry. As soon as her head appeared above the top of the
companion-way she saw the wharves and houses on shore running away in a
peculiarly stealthy fashion; a ship much bigger than the _Oriana_, whose
decks were thronged with stewards and deck-hands cheering and calling
out greetings, went by; she dipped her flag to the outgoing _Oriana_,
and Marcella thought how nice and chivalrous ships were to each other.
Then it dawned on her that they were under weigh--that the heart she
felt beating was the ship's engines, and that the extraordinary
behaviour of the shore was because the _Oriana_ was going out with the
tide.

She wondered then why she had come, and felt very frightened and lonely.
In all this big ship was no one who would care if she fell overboard
into the muddy water; in all the world except at Lashnagar, which was
sliding away from her with every beat of the ship's heart, there was no
one who knew her except an unknown, almost legendary, uncle. She sat
down on a co