inquired if Mrs. Oliphant was
a bad sailor.

"Middling; very much like the rest. You see I have been settling
everything conveniently--while I can."

She spoke as if she had just made her last will and testament, and
certainly everything was very commodiously arranged--for Mrs. Oliphant.
Not a peg or a corner was left for any properties of Bluebell's, who
perceived she would have to keep all her effects in the portmanteau, and
drag it out for everything she wanted.

"But I always try and cheer up other people," said the little lady,
complacently. "I have a bad bout, and then I go and visit others, and
keep up their spirits--going round the wards I call it. When I came out,
Mrs. Kite, of our regiment, and Mrs. Dove, of the 100th 'Scatterers,'
would have laid themselves down and died if it hadn't been for me; but I
roused them--Mrs. Kite, at least--for poor Mrs. Dove gave way so, she
wasn't out of her berth for a week, and could keep down nothing but a
peppermint, and the stewardess never came near her."

"But surely everybody won't be ill!" said Bluebell, somewhat appalled by
these statistics, and, with the close air of the cabin, feeling her head
swim a little. "I believe it is better not to think about it."

"Certainly; let us change the subject. Will you hand me my
eau-de-Cologne? And so you have never been to England before."

"Never," responded Bluebell, not inveigled into giving any further
information by Mrs. Oliphant's look of curiosity.

"Perhaps you are going out now to be married?" (archly.)

"No," said the girl, composedly; "if that were the case I should hope my
intended husband would come and fetch me."

"Well," said the lady, finding she was to extract nothing, "I suppose we
must be getting ready for dinner. In the P. and O. it used to be full
evening costume, but one soon has to give that up on the Atlantic; so you
see I just change my body for a white Garibaldi, and put a coloured net
on. I have four nets, mauve, magenta, green, and blue; these make a nice
change."

But in spite of her extreme satisfaction in her own arrangements, she
felt secretly disgusted at the freshness of Bluebell's appearance in an
uncrushable soft _barege_ trimmed with blue. It was also rather a blow to
observe those thick shining coils of chestnut hair were not supplemented
from the stores of any Translantic _coiffeur_.

When they came to dinner, a little more motion was perceivable as they
were entering the Gulf, a