“Yes.”

“I am Captain Alton.  I hope you like your new cabin.  Let me introduce you to Lady Holmhurst, wife of Lord Holmhurst, the New Zealand Governor, you know.  Lady Holmhurst, this is Miss Smithers, whose book you were talking so much about.”

“Oh!  I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Smithers,” said the great lady in a manner that evidently was not assumed.  “Captain Alton has promised that I shall sit next to you at dinner, and then we can have a good talk.  I don’t know when I have been so much delighted with anything as I was with your book.  I have read it three times, what do you think of that for a busy woman?”

“I think there is some mistake,” said Augusta, hurriedly and with a slight blush.  “I am a second-class passenger on board this ship, and therefore cannot have the pleasure of sitting next to Lady Holmhurst.”

“Oh, that is all right, Miss Smithers,” said the captain, with a jolly laugh.  “You are my guest, and I shall take no denial.”

“When we find genius for once in our lives, we are not going to lose the opportunity of sitting at its feet,” added Lady Holmhurst, with a little movement towards her which was neither curtsey nor bow, but rather a happy combination of both.  The compliment was, Augusta felt, sincere, however much it exaggerated the measure of her poor capacities, and, putting other things aside, was, coming as it did from one woman to another, peculiarly graceful and surprising.  She blushed and bowed, scarcely knowing what to say, when suddenly, Mr. Meeson’s harsh tones, pitched just now in a respectful key, broke upon her ear.  Mr. Meeson was addressing no less a person than Lord Holmhurst, G.C.M.G.  Lord Holmhurst was a stout, short, dark little man, with a somewhat pompous manner, and a kindly face.  He was a Colonial Governor of the first water, and was perfectly aware of the fact.

Now, a Colonial Governor, even though he be a G.C.M.G. when he is at home, is not a name to conjure with, and does not fill an exclusive place in the eye of the English world.  There are many Colonial Governors in the present and past tense to be found in the purlieus of South Kensington, where their presence creates no unusual excitement.  But when one of this honourable corps sets foot upon the vessel destined to bear him to the shores that he shall rule, all this changes.  He puts off the body of the ordinary betitled individual and puts on the body of the celestial brotherhood.  In short, from being nobody out of the common he becomes, and very properly so, a great man.  Nobody knew this better than Lord Holmhurst, and to a person fond of observing such things nothing could have been more curious to notice than the small, but gradual increase of the pomposity of his manner, as the great ship day by day steamed further from England and nearer to the country where he was King.  It went up, degree by degree, like a thermometer which is taken down into the bowels of the earth or gradually removed into the sunlight.  At present, however, the thermometer was only rising.