ow he could be laid aside for so
ugly a lout as this stranger from England. Captain M'Gramm was not a
handsome man, and he was aware that he fought his battle under the
disadvantage of a wife. But he had impudence enough to compensate him
for this double drawback.

During this first dinner, Arthur Wilkinson was not more than coldly
civil to Mrs. Price; but Bertram became after a while warmly civil to
Mrs. Cox. It is so very nice to be smiled on by the prettiest woman
in the room; and it was long since he had seen the smile of any
pretty woman! Indeed, for the last eighteen months he had had but
little to do with such smiles.

Before dinner was over, Mrs. Cox had explained to Bertram that both
she and her friend Mrs. Price were in deep affliction. They had
recently lost their husbands--the one, by cholera; that was poor
dear Cox, who had been collector of the Honourable Company's taxes
at Panjabee. Whereas, Lieutenant Price, of the 71st Native Bengal
Infantry, had succumbed to--here Mrs. Cox shook her head, and
whispered, and pointed to the champagne-glass which Bertram was in
the act of filling for her. Poor Cox had gone just eight months; but
Price had taken his last glass within six. And so Bertram knew all
about it.

And then there was a great fuss in packing the travellers into the
wooden boxes. It seems that they had all made up their own parties
by sixes, that being the number of which one box was supposed to be
capable. But pretty women are capricious, and neither Mrs. Price nor
Mrs. Cox were willing to abide by any such arrangement. When the
time came for handing them in, they both objected to the box pointed
out to them by Major Biffin--refused to be lifted in by the arms
of Captain M'Gramm--got at last into another vacant box with the
assistance of our friends--summoned their dingy nurses and babies
into the same box (for each was so provided)--and then very prettily
made way for Mr. Bertram and Mr. Wilkinson. And so they went across
the desert.

Then they all stayed a night at Cairo, and then they went on to
Alexandria. And by the time that they were embarked in a boat
together, on their way to that gallant first-class steamer, the
"Cagliari," they were as intimate as though they had travelled round
the world together, and had been as long about it as Captain Cook.

"What will you take with you, Mrs. Cox?" said Bertram, as he stood up
in the boat with the baby on one arm, while with the other he handed