'So other people have thought, if they have not openly said so,' Mrs. Waldron replied. 'I am sure they must have thought so. Yet,' she went on, with determination, 'I have agreed to it, and I cannot retract my word. It is given, and must be kept. No, it is not that which troubles me.' 'What, then?' 'Why, the getting out. How is the child to go alone, in a great liner, with two or three hundred passengers, all the way to Bombay? How?' she repeated. 'Bombay, eh? Bombay. Oh, well, if that's her destination, she can go comfortably enough. There need be no trouble about that. Only she will be more than double the time the P. and O., or any other line, would take to carry her.' 'What do you mean, George?' 'Why,' he said, 'I happen to be taking the old _Emperor_ to Bombay next month with a general cargo--calling at the Cape on the way. She can go with me, and welcome. There's a cabin fit for a duchess which she can have.' * * * * * * It was a cabin fit for a duchess, as Bella and her mother acknowledged when, a fortnight later, they went down to Gravesend to inspect the _Emperor of the Moon_, and after it had been decided in solemn family conclave that, by this ship, the former should make the voyage to India. And it was more than likely that the girl would make it under particularly pleasant circumstances, since this was one of those occasions on which Mrs. Pooley had decided to accompany her husband, she not having felt very well during the past winter. At present, the cabin was empty and denuded of everything, Pooley having decided to have it refurnished; but when he told them how that furniture would be arranged in the great roomy place, which would have been dignified as a 'state-room' in one of the old clippers, Bella said again, as she had said so often before, that 'he was the best old uncle in the world.' Now the _Emperor of the Moon_ was a smart, though old-fashioned, full-rigged ship of about six hundred tons, her lines being perfect, while leaving her full of room inside. Her saloon was a comfortable one, well furnished with plush-covered chairs and benches--the covering being quite new; a piano--also looking new--was lashed to the stem of the mizzen-mast, while there were swinging vases, in which, no doubt, fresh ferns and flowers would be placed later. On deck she was very clean and white, with much brass and everything neat and shipshape, while the seaman who should regard her bows and stern would at once acknowledge that she left little to desire, old as she was. For, in the days when she was laid, they built ships with a view to both sea qualities and comfort, and the _Emperor of the Moon_ lacked neither. Her sleeping-cabins were bedrooms, her saloon was a dining-room as good as you would find in a fifty-pound-a-year suburban residence, and her masts would have done credit to one of Her Majesty's earlier ships.