Foreigners say that it is only English girls who can thus be trusted to travel alone, and deep is their wonder at the daring confidence of English parents and guardians. As for the “jeunes Meess,” by some their intrepidity is pronounced masculine and “inconvenant,” others regard them as the passive victims of an educational and theological system which wantonly dispenses with proper “surveillance.” Whether this particular young lady was of the sort that can the most safely be left unwatched, I do not know: or, rather did not _then_ know; but it soon appeared that the dignity of solitude was not to her taste. She paced the deck once or twice backwards and forwards; she looked with a little sour air of disdain at the flaunting silks and velvets, and the bears which thereon danced attendance, and eventually she approached me and spoke. “Are you fond of a sea-voyage?” was her question. I explained that my _fondness_ for a sea-voyage had yet to undergo the test of experience; I had never made one. “Oh, how charming!” cried she. “I quite envy you the novelty: first impressions, you know, are so pleasant. Now I have made so many, I quite forget the first: I am quite _blasée_ about the sea and all that.” I could not help smiling. “Why do you laugh at me?” she inquired, with a frank testiness that pleased me better than her other talk. “Because you are so young to be _blasée_ about anything.” “I am seventeen” (a little piqued). “You hardly look sixteen. Do you like travelling alone?” “Bah! I care nothing about it. I have crossed the Channel ten times, alone; but then I take care never to be long alone: I always make friends.” “You will scarcely make many friends this voyage, I think” (glancing at the Watson-group, who were now laughing and making a great deal of noise on deck). “Not of those odious men and women,” said she: “such people should be steerage passengers. Are you going to school?” “No.” “Where are you going?” “I have not the least idea—beyond, at least, the port of Boue-Marine.” She stared, then carelessly ran on: