ly indifferent backs, the lady who shared Miss Filbert's
cabin--she belonged to a smart cavalry regiment at Mhow--went about
saying things with a distinct edge. Miss Filbert exhausted all the
means. She attempted to hold a meeting forward of the smoking cabin,
standing for elevation on one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but
with this the captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on
behalf of the whist-players inside. In the evening, after dinner, she
established herself in a sheltered corner and sang. Her recovered
voice lifted itself with infinite pathetic sweetness in songs about the
poverty of the world and the riches of heaven; the notes mingled with
the churning of the screw, and fell in the darkness beyond the ship's
lights abroad upon the sea. The other passengers listened aloof; the
Coromandel was crowded, but you could have drawn a wide circle round her
chair. On the morning of the fourth day out--she had not felt quite
well enough for adventures before--she found her way to the second-class
saloon, being no doubt fully justified of her conscience in abandoning
the first to the flippancies of its preference.

In the second-class end the tone was certainly more like that of
Plymouth. Laura had a grateful sense of this in coming, almost at once,
upon a little group gathered together for praise and prayer, of which
four or five persons of both sexes, labelled "S. A.," naturally
formed the centre. They were not only praying and praising without
discouragement, they had attracted several other people who had brought
their chairs into near and friendly relation, and even joined sometimes
in the chorus of the hymns. There was a woman in mourning who cried a
good deal--her tears seemed to refresh the Salvationists and inspire
them to louder and more cheerful efforts. There was a man in a wide,
soft felt hat with the malaria of the Terai in the hollows under
his eyes; there was a Church Missionary with an air of charity and
forbearance, and the bushy-eyed colonel of a native regiment looking
vigilant against ridicule, with his wife, whose round red little face
continually waxed and waned in a smile of true contentment. It was not
till later that Laura came to know them all so very well, but her eye
rested on them one after another, with approval, as she drew near.
Without pausing in his chant--it happened to be one of triumph--without
even looking at her, the leader indicated an empty chair. It was his
own