of the sunlight had disturbed Ada's slumbers, it
had had the beneficial effect of imparting somewhat of its brightness to
her spirits; and instead of the gloomy oppression which she had before
experienced, she now felt a glow of hope circling round her heart; and
she was fully prepared to credit the favourable account of the state of
affairs which Marianna was about to give her as soon as she was
questioned.

"Where am I--what has happened?" she asked, endeavouring to sit up.

"You must take another draught before I am at liberty to tell you
anything, my dear signora," answered Marianna, bringing her the goblet
which Paolo had sent. She drank the cooling mixture, and it served
still further to revive her. "Now let me arrange your pillows, and I
will tell you all you want to know," said the faithful girl, arranging
her couch. "There, now you are comfortable! Well, first, we are with
very kind, considerate people, who do everything I wish; and we are as
safe as we can be on board ship--though I wish ships had never been
invented; then we are going to a very beautiful place--though, when we
are to get there depends on the wind and other circumstances, which I am
not clever enough to explain."

She was running on in this style, when Ada cut her short by abruptly
asking--

"Where is my uncle? Is he on board? Why does he not come to me?"

"Ah! there are some little mysteries which I cannot explain just now,
and that is one of them," promptly returned Marianna. "The signor
colonel is not on board the ship, nor is the good Captain Bowse--they
all went away in the other one; and we--that we might be much safer--we
came on board this one. Here we are, and here we must remain, till you,
my dear signora, can get well enough to go on shore; but there is no
hurry, for we could not be better off than we are now. So, as you have
asked a great many questions, which your doctor said that if you did I
was not to answer, yet I have done so, you must try and go fast asleep
again, and forget all about it."

Ada was still too weak, she discovered, to talk; and her mind had not
either sufficiently recovered its clearness to perceive the glaring
evasiveness of her servant's replies; so, satisfied that her
apprehensions of danger were groundless, she amused herself by examining
the fittings of the cabin, and by watching through the open ports the
magnificent effect of the setting sun, which now just dipping in the
water, seemed