eed
cloak that reached to her ankles, and the general, with an apology to me
for his desertion, stepped forward and gallantly offered his arm, which
she accepted. And she remained on deck the whole of the morning, with
the wind blustering about her and the rain dashing in her face every
time that she faced it in her passage from the wheel grating to the
break of the poop, to the great benefit of her complexion. She was the
only lady who ventured on deck that day--for the weather was so thick
that there was nothing to see, beyond an occasional buoy marking out the
position of a sandbank, a grimy Geordie, loaded down to her
covering-board, driving along up the river under a brace of patched and
sooty topsails, or an inward-bound south-spainer in tow of a tug; but
this fact of her being the only representative of her sex on deck
appeared to disconcert Miss Onslow not at all; she was as absolutely
self-possessed as though she and the general had been in sole possession
of the deck, as indeed they were, so far as she was concerned, for she
calmly and utterly ignored the presence of the rest of us, excepting the
skipper, with whom and with the general she conversed with much
vivacity. By the arrival of tiffin-time we had drawn far enough down
the river to be just meeting the first of the sea knocked up by the
strong breeze, and I noticed that already a few of the seats at table
that had been occupied at breakfast-time were vacant--among them that of
Lady O'Brien--but my left-hand neighbour exhibited a thoroughly healthy
appetite--due in part, probably, to her long promenade on deck in the
wind and the rain. She was still as stately and distant in manner as
ever, however, when I attempted to enter into conversation with her, and
I met with such scant encouragement that ere the meal was half over I
desisted, leaving to the skipper the task of further entertaining her.

By six o'clock that night we were abreast of the buoy which marks
Longnose Ledge, when the pilot shifted his helm for the Elbow, and we
began to feel in earnest the influence of the short, choppy sea, into
which the _City of Cawnpore_ was soon plunging her sharp stem to the
height of the hawse pipes, to the rapidly-increasing discomfort of many
of the passengers. By seven o'clock--which was the dinner-hour--we were
well round the Elbow, and heading to pass inside the Goodwin and through
the Downs, with most of our fore-and-aft canvas set; and now we had not