“You’re getting on famously, my dear,” said the lady from Barbadoes.
“Pretty well, thank you, Ma’am,” said Miss Viner.
“Mr. Forrest seems to be making himself quite agreeable. I tell Amelia,”—Amelia was the young lady to whom in their joint cabin Miss Viner could not reconcile herself,—“I tell Amelia that she is wrong not to receive attentions from gentlemen on board ship. If it is not carried too far,” and she put great emphasis on the “too far,”—“I see no harm in it.”
“Nor I, either,” said Miss Viner.
“But then Amelia is so particular.”
“The best way is to take such things as they come,” said Miss Viner,—perhaps meaning that such things never did come in the way of Amelia. “If a lady knows what she is about she need not fear a gentleman’s attentions.”
“That’s just what I tell Amelia; but then, my dear, she has not had so much experience as you and I.”
Such being the amenities which passed between Miss Viner and the prudent lady who had her in charge, it was not wonderful that the former should feel ill at ease with her own “party,” as the family of the Grumpy Barbadian was generally considered to be by those on board.
“You’re getting along like a house on fire with Miss Viner,” said Matthew Morris, to his young friend.
“Not much fire I can assure you,” said Forrest.