It was a melancholy grey day when I drove with my father to the station; the east wind sang like the surf in the naked, iron-hard boughs, and the sea streamed in lines of snow into the black desolate distance, unbroken by a gleam of sail, save, as we turned the corner which gave me a view of the ocean, I caught sight of a lonely black and red carcass of a steamer staggering along, tall and naked as though plucked, with a hill of foam under her counter; the melancholy and desolation of the day was in her, and no picture of shipwreck could have made that scene of waters sadder. I had bidden good-bye to all I knew during the week: there were no more farewells to be said. We entered the train, and when we ran out of the station I felt that my long voyage had truly commenced. I'll not linger over my brief stay in London. Mr. Moore was constantly with me: indeed we were seldom apart during those two days of my waiting to join the ship at Gravesend. His father and sister called to say good-bye; I was too poorly and low-spirited to visit them. In truth I never once left the hotel until I drove with my father and Mr. Moore to the station to take the train to Gravesend. Before embarking, however, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Owen, the surgeon of the ship. He had occasion to be in the West End of London, and Mrs. Burke asked him to call. I viewed him with considerable curiosity, for it was not only he was to be my medical adviser--I could not but reflect that I was to be locked up in a small ship with this man for very many months, with no other change of society than Captain and Mrs. Burke. I was pleasantly disappointed in him. I had figured a yellow, long-faced, melancholy man, with a countenance ploughed by frequent secret weeping, and furrowed by pitiful memories and night thoughts black as Dr. Young's. Instead there entered the room briskly, with a sideways bow cleverly executed whilst in motion, the right arm advanced, a short, plump figure of a man in a coat cut in something of a clerical style, short legs, and a face that would have been reasonably full but for its long aquiline nose, and contraction of lineaments due to a big bush of hair standing out stiff in minute curls over either ear. Otherwise he was bald. My father was extremely polite to him. He stayed an hour and partook of some slight refreshment. He stared at me very earnestly, felt my pulse, considered me generally with polite professional attention, and, after he had put certain questions, said to my father with significant gravity: 'You may console yourself, sir, for the temporary loss of your daughter; I do not scruple to say that in sending her on this voyage you will be saving her life. I believe I can recognise her case, and strongly share the opinion of those who prescribe a long residence on board ship upon the ocean.'