Of course we were up at an unearthly hour, all our belongings carefully packed and labelled, ourselves clad in clean white dresses and topis to face the burning, shining face of India.  There was little to see and nothing to do, and we walked about getting hungrier and hungrier, and yet when breakfast-time did come we found we were too excited to eat.

When we got into the dock we saw all the people who had come to meet us penned like sheep into enclosures, and we leaned over the side trying to make out the faces of friends.  Presently they were allowed to come on board, and I, eagerly watching, spied Boggley bounding up the ladder, and the next moment we were clutching each other wildly.  But our greeting—­what it is to be Scots!—­was merely “Hallo! there you are!” I need not have worried about what I would say when I met him—­yes, I was silly enough to do that—­for he is just the same dear old Boggley, hair as red, eyes as blue and as short-sighted, mouth as wide as ever.  I think his legs are even longer.  The first thing he did when he came on board was to fall over someone’s dressing-bag, and that made us both laugh helplessly like silly children.  I introduced him to G. and the others, and by this time G. had found her sister, and soon they were all talking together, so G. and I slipped away to look out for people in whom we were interested.  Very specially did we want, to see Mr. Albert Murray, and when we did see him he was almost exactly what we had expected—­small, sandy-haired, his topi making his head look out of all proportion, and with a trodden-on look.  We noticed the little man wandering aimlessly about, when a voice from the music-room door saying “Albert” made him start visibly, and turning, he sidled up to our cabin companion, who kissed him severely, while he murmured, “Well, m’ dear, how are you?” Seeing us standing near she said, “Well, good-bye, girls.  I hope you’ll have a good time and behave yourselves;” and then, turning to her husband, by way of an introduction, she added, “These are the girls who shared my cabin.”  Mr. Albert shuffled his topi and looked at us with kind, blinking eyes, but attempted no remark.  The last we saw of him he was tugging the hat-box in the wake of his managing wife.  G. looked at me solemnly.  “We had little to complain of,” she said; “we weren’t married to her.”

The husband of the Candle was the greatest surprise.  I had imagined—­why, I don’t know—­that that lady’s husband would be tall and red-faced, with a large moustache and loud voice and manner, someone who would match well with the Candle.  Instead, we beheld a dark, thin-faced man with a stoop, a man who looked like a scholar and spoke with a delightful, quiet voice.  He addressed the Candle as Jane. Jane! If it had been Fluffy, or Trixie, or Chippy, or even Dolly, but, with that hair, that complexion, that voice, that troop of attendant swains, to be called Jane!  The thing was out of all reason.  I wonder all the widespread family of Janes, with their meek eyes and smoothly braided hair, don’t rise up and call her anything but blessed.  Oh, I know there was no thought of pleasing me when she was christened, but still—­Jane!