"Do you know, my dear, that you are _lovely_!"
"I think we shall make rather a striking pair, you and I--such a complete contrast. I with my gipsy face, you with your masses of golden brown hair and sunny blue-grey eyes--sometimes they are angel-praying eyes, and sometimes I see a little devil dancing in each of them! Then, and above all, my dear, you look such an aristocrat."
It was an enormous relief to me when the return of the forewoman and skirt hand put an end to these embarrassing and exaggerated compliments.
Ten days later we sailed from Tilbury Docks. I was seen off by my uncle and aunt, Lizzie, Beverley, young Champneys and two schoolfellows who happened to be in London; my cabin, which I shared with Mrs. Hayes-Billington, was packed with books, flowers, and large boxes of my favourite sweets. I must here confess, hard-hearted creature as I was, that I left my native land with composure. I should add, however, that since I had come to woman's estate I was not much given to weeping, but, on the other hand, Mrs. Hayes-Billington, in a voice choked with emotion, large tears trembling in her splendid eyes, assured my aunt and uncle that she would be a _mother_ to me.
Our steamer, the _Asphodel_, corresponded with the passage money in every particular. She looked, and was, cheap, and I think I may add, nasty. The smell of oil from the engine-room almost overpowered the salt sea air, and the saloon reeked of new mahogany and stale sherry. The cabins were small and stuffy. There were but two bathrooms for the first-class passengers, who luckily were few and far between: chiefly individuals like the Hayes-Billingtons who had squandered most of their money when on furlough; one or two railway officials, several planters, and half a dozen missionaries; nothing approaching the smart crowd that one heard or read of as passengers to the East. For one thing, we were outward bound at the wrong time of year; and for another, we had booked by an unfashionable line. There were no dances, no games; the piano was a derelict; but the weather and the novelty consoled me for all deficiencies.
As we coasted down by Spain and put in at Gibraltar and Malta, and endured the usual coaling agony at Port Said, it seemed to me that I was seeing the world at last! Mrs. Hayes-Billington and I shared the same cabin. Here I also shared some of the secrets of her toilet; to do her justice she had no false shame, and allowed me to know that certain portions of her hair and complexion were artificial; nevertheless, much of her beauty was _bona fide_. Living at such close quarters I realised that she was considerably older than I had supposed, and, in spite of some wonderful grease that she applied at night, there were wrinkles round her eyes and lines upon her forehead.