‘I thought,’ said she, smiling as she placed the tray full of good things upon the deck, ‘that you would rather have your tea here than at the table outside, and with your leave I will drink a cup of tea with you. Ah! now you look better. Yes, your eyes have cleared wonderfully; and I don’t see the same expression of pain in your face. And how much better that bandage looks than the ugly sticking-plaister.’ She chatted thus whilst she gazed around, considering how she should dispose of the tray. At last she placed it in my bed, where it would be safe--where, at least, it would not slide, for there was a heave running from the sunset through the sea, and the ship regularly leaned upon it, but in motions so stately as scarcely to be noticeable. We seated ourselves by the side of the bed and ate and drank. She had brought cold fowl, and ham-and-tongue, and pressed beef, and fancy rolls of bread, all which, with other things, after the fare I had been used to on board the brig, were true dainties and delicacies to me, and particularly did I enjoy the tea with its dash of new milk. ‘I had some trouble,’ said the stewardess, looking into the milk-jug, ‘to coax this drop out of the steward. There is but one cow, and there are many demands upon poor Crummie. But I felt sure you would enjoy a cup of tea with milk in it.’ She then asked me what Mr. McEwan had said, and I told her. ‘He is a clever man, I believe,’ said she. ‘Oh, if he would only give me back my memory!’ I exclaimed. ‘I wonder what the captain means to do with you,’ said she. ‘And I, too, wonder. Have I a home? Surely I must have a home somewhere? It cannot be that I am utterly alone in the world, though I am so now.’ ‘No, dear, you will not be alone. God will raise up friends for you until He gives you back your memory; and then----’ ‘But this ship is going on a long voyage,’ said I, ‘and if I remain in her she will be carrying me away from where my home may be.’ ‘Yes, but if your home is in England, this ship will convey you back there if you remain in her.’ ‘How long will it take the ship to sail to the place you spoke of?’ ‘Sydney. She is going to Sydney. Well, it may take her three months, or it may take her four months, to get there, and she will stop at Sydney for three months. We all hope--all of us, I mean, whose homes are in England--to be home by next August.’ I turned her words over in my mind, but was unable to attach any meaning to what she said. I could not understand _time_--that is, I did not know what Mrs. Richards meant when she spoke of ‘next August.’ But I would not question her; my incapacity made me feel ashamed, and exquisitely wretched at heart, and I asked no questions, lest she should divine that I did not comprehend her.