The packet from St. Thomas was to be in the harbour at eight o'clock the next morning,--telegrams from Cape Clear, The Lizard, Eddystone Lighthouse, and where not, having made all that as certain as sun-rising. At eight o'clock he was down on the quay, and there was the travelling city of the Royal Atlantic Steam Mail Packet Company at that moment being warped into the harbour. The ship as he walked along the jetty was so near to him that he could plainly see the faces of the passengers on deck,--men and women, girls and children, all dressed up to meet their friends on shore, crowding the sides of the vessel in their eagerness to be among the first to get on shore. He anxiously scanned the faces of the ladies that he might guess which was to be the lady that was to be to him almost the same as a daughter. He saw not one as to whom he could say that he had a hope. Some there were in the crowd, some three or four, as to whom he acknowledged that he had a fear. At last he remembered that his girl would necessarily be in deep mourning. He saw two young women in black;--but there was nothing to prepossess him about either of them. One of them was insignificant and very plain. The other was fat and untidy. They neither of them looked like ladies. What if fate should have sent to him as a daughter,--as a companion for his girls,--that fat, untidy, ill-bred looking young woman! As it happened, the ill-bred looking young woman whom he feared, was a cook who had married a ship-steward, had gone out among the islands with her husband, had found that the speculation did not answer, and was now returning in the hope of earning her bread in her old vocation. Of this woman Sir Thomas Underwood was in great dread. But at last he was on board, and whispered his question to the purser. Miss Bonner! Oh, yes; Miss Bonner was on board. Was he Sir Thomas Underwood, Miss Bonner's uncle? The purser evidently knew all about it, and there was something in his tone which seemed to assure Sir Thomas that the fat, untidy woman and his niece could not be one and the same person. The purser had just raised his cap to Sir Thomas, and had turned towards the cabin-stairs to go in search of the lady herself; but he was stopped immediately by Miss Bonner herself. The purser did his task very well,--said some slightest word to introduce the uncle and the niece together, and then vanished. Sir Thomas blushed, shuffled with his feet, and put out both his hands. He was shy, astonished, and frightened,--and did not know what to say. The girl came up to him, took his hand in hers, holding it for a moment, and then kissed it. "I did not think you would come yourself," she said. "Of course I have come myself. My girls are at home, and will receive you to-night." She said nothing further then, but again raised his hand and kissed it.