G. won by guessing "Annie Laurie." She is splendid at all games, and
did I tell you how well she sings? In the cabin, when we are alone,
she sings to me snatches of all sorts of songs, grave and gay, but she
won't sing in the saloon, where every other woman on board with
the smallest pretensions to a voice carols nightly. She is a most
attractive person this G., with quaint little whimsical ways that make
her very lovable. We are together every minute of the day, and yet we
never tire of one another's company. I rather think I do most of the
talking. If it is true that to be slow in words is a woman's only
virtue, then, indeed, is my state pitiable, for talk I must, and G. is
a delightful person to talk to. She listens to my tales of Peter
and the others, and asks for more, and shouts with laughter at the
smallest joke. I pass as a wit with G., and have a great success. She
is going to stay with a married sister for the cold weather. Quite
like me, only I'm going to an unmarried brother. I think we are both
getting slightly impertinent to our elders. They tease us so at meals
in the saloon we have to answer back in self-defence, and it is very
difficult to help trying to be smart; sometimes, at least with me,
it degenerates into rudeness. I told you about all the people at our
table, but I forgot one--a very aged man with a long white beard,
rather like the evil magician in the fairy tales, but most harmless.
"Old Sir Thomas Erpingham," I call him, for I am sure a good soft
pillow for that good grey head were better than the churlish turf of
India. He is very kind, and calls us Sunshine and Brightness, and pays
us the most involved Early Victorian compliments, which we, talking
and laughing all the time, seldom ever hear, and it is left to kind
Mrs. Wilmot to respond.
_Nov. 7_.
Last night we had an excitement. We got into a thick fog and had to
stand still and hoot, while something--a homeward-bound steamer, they
say--nearly ran us down. The people sleeping on deck said it was
most awesome, but I slept peacefully through it until awakened by an
American female running down the corridor and remarking at the top of
a singularly piercing voice, "Wal, I am scared!"
To-day it is beautifully calm and bright; the nasty, hot, damp wind
has gone; and we are sitting in our own little corner of the deck,
Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Wilmot, G., and I, sometimes reading, sometimes
writing, very often talking. It is luck for us to have two such
charming women to talk to. Mrs. Crawley is supposed to be my chaperon,
I believe I forgot to tell you that. Boggley, who is a great friend of
hers, wrote and asked her to look after me. How clever of him to fix
on one in every way so desirable! Suppose he had asked the Candle!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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