'I wish,' the girl muttered to herself, standing by the window and drawing up the blind half-way, whereby she was enabled to see that the gray dawn of a May morning gave promise of a warm, fine day later on, 'that, if I were to have such bad dreams at all, I might have been spared them on the very day of my departure for the other side of the globe. I am not superstitious, yet, yet--well!--I shall think of this dream, I know, for many a day to come.' Then she slipped on her dressing-gown, thrust her pretty little white feet into some warm, felt bath-slippers, and, opening her door quietly, because it was still early and she did not wish to awaken those in the house who might be asleep, she went across the passage to her mother's room. Yet, ere she did so, let us regard this young girl, whose story and adventures we are now to follow--this girl whose dreams of leering crocodiles and dark, mystic caves, with hideous creatures gyrating in them, will, as we shall see, be far outnumbered and outshone by the actual realities that she will experience in her passage across the world. For it had been resolved on by Fate, or Providence, or Destiny, or whatever one may term that power which controls our earthly existence, that to Bella Waldron were to come experiences, strange, horrible, and fantastic, such as the last decade of our expiring century rarely assaults men with, and women hardly ever. Standing there in the now clear light of the morning, her long dressing-gown enshrouding her tall, shapely, and _svelte_ figure, and with her masses of hair hanging dishevelled--hair a warm brown with golden gleams in it, such as has the ripening corn--an observer would decide at once that she was beautiful. Beautiful, also, by the gift of clear, hazel-gray eyes--eyes that were pure and innocent in their glance; beautiful as well by her softly-rounded face, her rich red lips--the upper one divinely short--and also by her colouring. If, too, one applies to her the lines of that old poet dead and gone two hundred years ago, the words describing Gloriana:-- More fair than the red morning's dawn, Sweeter than pearly dews that scent the lawn, Than blue-eyed violets, or the damask rose When in her hottest fragrancy she glows, Bella Waldron may be considered as depicted. 'Mother,' she said, going in now to the room where the poor lady whom she addressed had herself passed a sad and tearful night, bemoaning the fact that soon--in a few hours--indeed now--because the fateful day had come--her child was to be torn from her. 'Oh, mother! It is to-day--to-day! Oh, my darling! how can I part from you?' And then, folding her mother in her arms while she sat on the bedside, the two women wept together.