_Mrs H_. You will, questionless, hear it often in the future. Well, miss, this unfortunate state of affairs is due, in my mind, to the injudicious severity of the ladies who have the charge of these young women. By forbidding them to converse with, or even to glance at, any of the gentlemen about them, they force them to appear either shy or uncivil, while by engaging the authority of the captain on their side they deliver a direct challenge to the young gentlemen to evade their prohibitions, so that it becomes the dearest wish of the young people to make each other’s acquaintance, and this they’ll succeed in doing by foul means, if not by fair. Ah! I could tell you of some sad unhappy marriages that have come about in this way, and also of many cases in which the young lady has seen her folly, and wedded the person selected for her by her guardians, after infinite trouble and foolish behaviour on the part of the suitor she has abandoned! Now I design to place no restriction upon you and my Charlotte, Miss Freyne. I have treated you as reasonable creatures, and I look to you to requite my kindness, mixing with these gentlemen, and any others I may introduce to your notice while on board, as young women of sense should do, and giving them no cause for presumption, nor others for talk. I leave the matter with your own consciences, requesting you to consider the pains taken with your bringing-up, and to remember that you would be actually robbing your relatives if you married below the rank they have a right to expect. _Sylvia_. Pray, madam, would it be impossible for us to confine ourselves chiefly to female society, while conversing with these gentlemen so far as civility demands? _Miss Hamlin_. La, miss! would you have an Indiaman a floating nunnery? _Mrs H_. Your suggestion, miss, is extremely proper, but ’twould be impossible to carry it out on board ship. You’ll find it almost necessary to have a gentleman at hand who will run your errands, and wait upon you on deck when the weather is fresh. But I can rely upon you to let the acquaintance go no further, and to preserve in your carriage such a distance as may keep your cavalier on the humble footing that becomes him.