I read this letter a dozen times over and kissed it as often. It seemed that an extraordinary coincidence was about to happen; I mean that the vessel in which Will was an apprentice was to prove the very ship which would carry Tom across the seas. I was strangely agitated; in a manner semi-delirious with the sudden wild play and disorder of my spirits. Tom was to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land. I would follow him. I would immediately find out if any vessel was sailing for Hobart on or about the date of the _Childe Harold’s_ departure. But, then, suppose the destination of the _Childe Harold_ should be changed without my knowing it! Or suppose she should sail without Tom, whilst I, not guessing this, should be on my way to the ends of the earth, thinking to find him there! I read the letter again. I paced the room as though I had gone mad. My maid put the breakfast on the table, but I could not look at food. Why, how could I be sure of my ever meeting Tom again, of my ever seeing him or hearing of him, indeed, if I did not go out in the same ship with him, if I was not certain that he was not one of the convicts on board? How was this to be done? I bitterly well knew that no passengers were received in Government felon transports? Could I obtain a berth in the _Childe Harold_ as stewardess? Was there any sort of post aboard her that I, as a woman, was qualified to fill? Whilst I thus thought, half distracted by the hurry and confusion my mind was in, I stopped at the window and, looking out, saw a young sailor walking on the pavement opposite. He was dressed in pilot cloth and a cloth cap, and was a very pretty lad; perhaps sixteen years old; something girlish in his looks, however, his hair being of a pale gold, his figure thin and his face without colour. He came to a stand, with his face my way, and laughed at something that was happening under my window; perhaps a dog fight, but I was too full of thought to take notice of the noise of the curs. My eye dwelt upon the pretty lad with a sort of pleasure. He looked up and saw me, and kissed his hand, but so girlishly and childishly that, though I instantly drew back, I did not somehow feel offended. When I peered again he was gone. All on a sudden an extraordinary idea entered my head. It had been put into it by the sight of that girlish-looking sailor lad. I set off pacing the room afresh, frowning, talking aloud to myself, halting to smite my hands together. ‘It is to be done!’ I kept on thinking. ‘It will be the surest and the only way! Why did not I think of it at once?’ And then I placed myself opposite a long glass that reached to the floor and surveyed my figure, turning myself on this side and then on that. My eyes shone. My cheeks were as full of colour as though I had been burnt by the sun. I lifted my dress to clear my ankles, and stepped backward and forward before the mirror, imitating as best I could the peculiar rolling gait I had always admired in Tom.