er that together we should take our last view of
England, for the breeze that carried us now so fast through the water
bid fair to take us soon out of sight of land. The young soon lose the
painful feelings of parting; besides, they were so delighted at being
really off, they had been so fearful lest anything should occur to
prevent one or all going, so as to destroy the _unity_, if I may so call
it, of the party, that unmitigated pleasure alone pervaded them. This
buoyancy of their feelings had as yet prevented any symptoms of illness,
and I don't think there was a pale face amongst the party, save the
little invalid and Smart, the gamekeeper. He sat silent and amazed
between his two dogs, and, could we have analyzed his feelings, I have
no doubt we should have been privy to most curious and contradictory
ideas. Qualms were coming over him of various kinds, equally foreign to
his nature. Probably, for the first time, he was experiencing fear and
sickness at the same moment, and quite unable to understand the symptoms
of either. The boys had not yet found out what made their dear Smart so
dull and unlike himself, when they were so joyous and delighted. We all
rose up, and went together to watch the fading land. Various
exclamations proved how much our thoughts dwelt on that beloved shore,
and long after my short sight had deemed it passed from view did my dear
girls exclaim, "they yet saw it; there were still lights." But Captain
MacNab wanted his deck to himself, so with cheerful good nights, the
moon being up, we descended to take our first meal on board, and use
those narrow couches at which we were so much amused, and which the
children had been longing to try from the moment they came on board.
Such a noisy tea never was, interrupted now and then by a lurching of
the vessel, which was such a new thing to us that all started, some in
fear, some in fun, and some, I must own, with other feelings not very
agreeable. The oddity of having nothing steady on our swinging table,
the laughing at the pale looks that flitted across the faces of others,
the grave determination with which little Winny declared "that now she
was really a sailor, she would only eat ship biscuit," caused intense
merriment. But ere tea was over one or two of our party disappeared, and
when twelve o'clock arrived Captain MacNab had La Luna all to himself
and his men, for the feminine crew were deep in slumber, caused by the,
to them, unusual motion of