Well, it was a solemn moment for her, I must say. She had her maid with her, it is true; but she was the only lady on board. There was none of her own quality with whom she could talk apart--no other woman to keep her in countenance, so to speak, with the sympathy of presence and sex; she was bound on a trip of which no mortal man could have dated the termination--an adventure that might carry her all about the world for aught she knew, for, since she was fully conscious of the very variable weather of my cousin’s mind, to use the old phrase, she would needs be too shrewd not to conjecture that many wild and surprising things were quite likely to happen whilst the power of directing the movements of the yacht remained his. And then, again, she was in quest of her sister, without a higher hope to support her than a fancy--that was the merest dream to my mind, when I thought of the little baby the woman had left behind her, to say nothing of her husband--that her passionate entreaties backing Wilfrid’s appeals might coax her ladyship to quit the side of the gallant figure she had run away with. Just then the merry silver tinkling of a bell smartly rung sounded through the open skylight, and at the same moment the form of a neat and comely young woman arose in the companion hatch. ‘What is it, Graham?’ inquired Miss Jennings. ‘The first dinner-bell, Miss. The second will ring at the half-hour.’ The girl pulled out a watch of the size of a thumbnail and exclaimed, ‘It is already five o’clock, Mr. Monson. It cannot be a whole hour since you arrived! I hope the time will pass as quickly when we are at sea.’ She lingered a moment gazing shorewards, sheltering her eyes sailor-fashion with an ungloved hand of milk-white softness, on which sparkled a gem or two; then, giving me a slight bow, she went to the companion and stepped down the ladder with the grace and ease of a creature floating on wings. Ho, ho! thought I, she will have her sea-legs anyhow; no need, therefore, Master Charles, to be _too_ officious with your hand and arm when the hour of tumblefication comes. But that she was likely to prove a good sailor was a reasonable conjecture, seeing that she was comparatively fresh from probably a four months’ passage from Melbourne.