The sea was always the same, smiling and smooth, and the "man at the wheel" seemed to be always holding us back by main strength from the place where we wanted to go. I had a growing belief that we should sail for ever on this rippling mirror and never touch the frame of it. It struck me with a sense of intense surprise when a dark line loomed far ahead, and they told me quietly that that line meant Bombay. It seemed a matter of course to my brother that the desired port should heave in sight just when he expected it, but to me the efforts that he had made to accomplish this tremendous result were ridiculously small. "I have done more work in a week, and had nothing to show for it at last," said I, "than you have seemed to do in all this voyage." "Poor sister! don't you wish you were a man?" "Certainly, all women do who have any sense. I hold with that ancient Father of the Church who maintained that all women are changed into men on the judgment-day. The council said it was heresy, but that don't alter my faith." "I shouldn't like you half as well if you had been born a boy," said Frank. "But I should like myself vastly better," said I, clinging to the last word. Bombay is a city by itself: there is none like it on earth, whatever there may be in the heaven above or in the waters under it. From Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy's hospital for sick animals to the Olympian conceit of the English residents, there are infinite variations of people and things that I am persuaded can be matched nowhere else. I felt myself living in a series of pictures, a sort of supernumerary in a theatre, where they changed the play every night. One of the first who boarded our ship was Mr. Rayne, an old friend of Frank's. He insisted on our going to his house for a few days in a warm-hearted way that was irresistible. "Are you quite sure you want _me_?" I said dubiously. "Young married people make a kind of heaven for themselves, and do not want old maids looking over the wall." "But you _must_ go with us," said Frank, man-like, never seeing anything but the uppermost surface of a question. "Not at all. I'm quite strong-minded enough to stay on board ship; or, if that would not do in this heathen place, the missionaries are always ready to entertain strangers. A week in the missionhouse would make me for ever a shining light in the sewing circle at home. "A woman of so many resources would be welcome anywhere. For my part, an old maid is a perfect Godsend. The genus is unknown here, and the loss to society immense," said Mr. Rayne. "But what shall I do when Mrs. Rayne and my sister-in-law are comparing notes about the perfections of their husbands?" "Walk on the verandah with me and convert me to woman suffrage."