'Stop!' cried Miss Goodenough, with great decision, and white with indignation; 'do you know what you are reading? Do you know that that vulgar rubbish is the sort of odious impertinence that shop-boys send to their sweethearts, but which it is an insult to let a lady even see, and which, transmitted in a church, is little less than sacrilege?'

So saying, Miss Goodenough took the offending letter and consigned it to the flames, and poor Maud stood ruefully by, watching the conflagration of the silver Cupid, mourning over Miss Goodenough's hard-heartedness, and consoling herself with the reflection that at any rate she remembered the verses.

'I must write to your aunt Felicia to remove you. What an example for other girls!'

'Well,' said Maud resignedly, and blushing in anticipation at the thought of such an exposure; 'do not, at any rate, tell her about the valentine. Dear Goody, did you never have one sent to you when you were my age?'

Miss Goodenough quite declined to gratify this audacious inquiry, and made up her mind that it was high time for Maud to be under more masterful guidance than her own. The result was that in the following November Maud was a passenger on the P. & O. steamship 'Cockatrice,' from Southampton to Calcutta, where her cousin Vernon was to meet her and escort her to her new home in Dustypore.

She had been, it must be acknowledged, to a certain degree reassured by the experience of her voyage. She found that the kings of Israel and Judah did not occupy a prominent place in general conversation; that a precise acquaintance with the queens of England was not expected of her; and that nobody resented the impetuosity of her movements or her want of self-restraint. On the contrary, several of her fellow-voyagers had evinced the liveliest sympathy and interest in her, and had devoted themselves successfully to keeping her amused. Maud, in fact, had gone down to her cabin on more occasions than one during the voyage and shed some tears at the approaching separation from friends, whom even those few weeks of chance companionship had carried close to her heart. It had been in truth a happy time. The captain, to whose special care she was committed, had watched over her with a more than paternal interest. The doctor insisted on her having champagne. The purser set all his occult influences at work to increase her comfort. The stewards conspired to spoil her. Maud felt that nothing she could do would at all adequately express her feelings to all these good people who had ministered to her wants and tried, with so much success, to please her. There are people, no doubt, to whom a voyage to India is the height of boredom; but there are other happier natures to whom it presents a continuous series of excitements, interests, and joys. Maud, at any rate, enjoyed it with a sort of rapture, and trembled to think how faintly Miss Goodenough's admonitions even now began to fall upon her conscience's ear.

Then there had been some very charming fellow-passengers on board, with whom she had formed the warmest friendship. There was a certain Mr. Mowbray, for instance—a comely, curly-headed, beardless boy, on his way to join his regiment—whom she found extremely interesting, and who lost no time in becoming confidential. It was very pleasant to sit on deck through long lazy mornings and play bésique with Mr. Mowbray; and pleasant too, when the day was done, to sit with him in the moonlight and watch the Southern Cross slowly wheeling up and the waves all ablaze with phosphoric splendour, and to talk about home and Mr. Mowbray's sisters, and the stations to which each of them were bound, never, probably, to meet again. There was something mysterious about it, Maud felt, and impressive, and very, very charming.

And then, on some evenings, the stewardess would declare that Maud looked pale, or had a headache, and that she should have a little dinner on deck; 'Just a bit of chicken, miss,' this benevolent being would say, 'and a slice of ham, and the doctor will give you a glass of champagne. The cabin is a deal too hot for you.' And then, by some happy fatality, Mr. Mowbray would also have a headache that very afternoon, and nothing but dining on deck would do for him; and so there would be a very pleasant little repast going on over the heads of the hot, noisy crowd who were gobbling up their food below; and the two invalids would forget their maladies, fancied or real, in the innocent excitement of a congenial tête-à-tête. On the whole, Maud had arrived at Dustypore with the conviction that existence, though beset with almost innumerable difficulties and dangers, was replete with enjoyments, which made it, despite every drawback, most thoroughly well worth while to be alive.