“Just a single cup, and very weak,” said Mrs. Crawford apologetically.
“My dear, I thought you were wiser.”
“You will take this chair, Mrs. Crawford?” said Doctor Campion, without making the least pretence of moving, however.
“Don't think of such a thing,” cried the lady's husband; and to do Doctor Campion justice, he did not think of such a thing. “Why, you don't fancy these are our Junkapore days, do you, when Kate came out to our bungalow, and the boys called her the Sylph? It's a fact, Miss Gerald; my wife, as your father will tell you, was as slim as a lily. Ah, dear, dear! Time, they say, takes a lot away from us, but by Jingo, he's liberal enough in some ways. By Jingo, yes,” and the gallant old man kept shaking his head and chuckling towards his comrade, whose features could be seen puckered into a grin though he uttered no sound.
“And stranger still, Miss Gerald,” said the lady, “the major was once looked upon as a polite man, and politer to his wife than to anybody else. Go and fetch some chairs here, Campion, like a good fellow,” she added to the doctor, who rose slowly and obeyed.
“That's how my wife takes command of the entire battalion, Miss Gerald,” remarked the major. “Oh, your father will tell you all about her.”
The constant reference to her father by one who was an old friend, came with a cheering influence to the girl. A terrible question as to what might be the result of her arrival at the Cape had suggested itself to her more than once since she had left Ireland; but now the major did not seem to fancy that there could be any question in the matter.
When the chairs were brought, and enveloped in karosses, as the old campaigners called the furs, there arose a chatter of bungalows, and punkahs, and puggarees, and calapashes, and curries, that was quite delightful to the girl's ears, especially as from time to time her father's name would be mentioned in connection with some elephant-trapping expedition, or, perhaps, a mess joke.
When at last Daireen found herself alone in the cabin which her grandfather had managed to secure for her, she did not feel that loneliness which she thought she should have felt aboard this ship full of strangers without sympathy for her.
She stood for a short time in the darkness, looking out of her cabin port over the long waters, and listening to the sound of the waves hurrying away from the ship and flapping against its sides, and once more she thought of the purple mountain and the green Irish Lough. Then as she moved away from the port her thoughts stretched in another direction—southward. Her heart was full of hope as she turned in to her bunk and went quietly asleep just as the first waves of the Bay of Biscay were making the good steamer a little uneasy, and bringing about a bitter remorse to those who had made merry over the dumplings and buttered toast.