Retired to their little cabin, Ethel and Rose were disrobing for rest—Nance Folgate had long since gone to sleep—and now, relinquishing the sad subject of Manfredi, Rose, with a blush on her charming face, was detailing to Ethel, for the second time, her interview with Leslie Heriot, whose ring—containing a large Scottish pearl, set with diamonds—glittered on the engaged finger of her left hand.
"And you are sure that you love him, Rose?" said Ethel, as she took her sister's face caressingly and affectionately between her soft hands.
"Dearly, devotedly," was the energetic reply. "How could I do otherwise, when he is such a kind, darling fellow—and so handsome too?"
"Have you weighed well the probabilities of the future?"
"What do you mean, Ethel dear?"
"What papa may think."
"Oh, Leslie will speak to papa to-morrow, or on the next day, at the latest."
Ethel smiled sadly at her sister's confidence.
"Our voyage will soon be over, dear Rose," said she, shaking her head seriously. "Once round the Cape of Good Hope, we shall be speedily at the Isle of France, and then your dream of joy will have an end—a rough awaking; not so sad or rough as mine, but a gloomy reality, and a doubtful future, nevertheless."
Poor Rose's usually merry eyes now filled with large tears, and she permitted the braids of her fine dark hair, which her slender fingers were wreathing up for the night, to roll down in unheeded masses over her bare bosom and back, which shone white as the new-fallen snowdrift, in the light of the cabin lamp that swung above her.