“Yes. But she usually leaves Madeira about this time. I wish she might happen to be going with us.”
“So do I, heartily. And, look—look at the lady in the second boat. She is very like her.”
“How curious. It is really she. Let us see if we can help her.”
They hurried to the gangway and welcomed with great cordiality a lady whom everybody seemed glad to see, not a young lady, however, but a placid, kindly-looking woman, tall and matronly, who was between fifty and sixty years of age. She thanked the young men who had eagerly offered their services, but she evidently did not recognise them nor quite understand their manifest pleasure.
“How are you, Miss Wentworth? It is good to meet you again. You have forgotten us, I see. We came out with you six years ago in the Drummond Castle. My friend is John Dallington, and I am Arthur Knight.”
“Oh, yes, I remember! You were both sent from England to be out of the way; because your presence at home was embarrassing.”
“Exactly; and we have been together ever since. We have travelled nearly all over the world; but they cannot do without us any longer in England, so we are homeward bound, as you are. Don’t you want to know how we have been getting along since we parted from you at the hotel yonder?”
“I shall like to hear anything you have to tell me. You are both so altered that I should not have known you. You have grown, I think, and passed from youth into manhood. Six years make a great difference when you are young. What has become of the gentleman who went to take care of you? Is he with you still?”
“No, he is not. We must tell you of him presently.”
They made a pleasant-looking trio, frequently, during the three days that sufficed to carry them to England, as, with chairs drawn together on the deck, they talked of the past and the future. Miss Wentworth was an interested listener. Her fifty years had made her very kindly and sympathetic, and the motherliness of her nature rendered her the friend of every one who came within her reach, and especially of the young. She had been kind to the two youths, when, a little sore-hearted and rebellious, they were outward bound, and among the things which she had said to “hearten them up” had been one which they had not forgotten. They were therefore the more glad to see her now that their banishment was ended, and they were about to begin life in earnest.