iron cannot be struck while it is hot, and long before the weary ninety days are over it is once more cold and black, or at the best glows with but a feeble heat.  But on the steamship there is no time for this, as any traveller knows.  Myself—­I, the historian—­have, with my own eyes seen a couple meet for the first time at Maderia, get married at the Cape, and go on as man and wife in the same vessel to Natal.  And, therefore, it came to pass that very evening a touching, and, on the whole melancholy, little scene was enacted near the smoke-stack of the Kangaroo.

Mr. Tombey and Miss Augusta Smithers were leaning together over the bulwarks and watching the phosphorescent foam go flashing past.  Mr. Tombey was nervous and ill at ease; Miss Smithers very much at ease, and reflecting that her companion’s moustachios would very well become a villain in a novel.

Mr. Tombey looked at the star-spangled sky, on which the Southern Cross hung low, and he looked at the phosphorescent sea; but from neither did inspiration come.  Inspiration is from within, and not from without.  At last, however, he made a gallant and a desperate effort.

“Miss Smithers,” he said in a voice trembling with agitation.

“Yes, Mr. Tombey,” answered Augusta, quietly; “what is it?”

“Miss Smithers,” he went on—­“Miss Augusta, I don’t know what you will think of me, but I must tell you, I can’t keep it any longer, I love you!”

Augusta fairly jumped.  Mr. Tombey had been very, even markedly, polite, and she, not being a fool, had seen that he admired her; but she had never expected this, and the suddenness with which the shot was fired was somewhat bewildering.

“Why, Mr. Tombey,” she said in a surprised voice, “you have only known me for a little more than a fortnight.”

“I fell in love with you when I had only known you for an hour,” he answered with evident sincerity.  “Please listen to me.  I know I am not worthy of you!  But I do love you so very dearly, and I would make you a good husband; indeed I would, I am well off; though, of course that is nothing; and if you don’t like New Zealand, I would give it up and go to live in England.  Do you think that you can take me?  If you only knew how dearly I love you, I am sure you would.”

Augusta collected her wits as well as she could.  The man evidently did love her; there was no doubting the sincerity of his words, and she liked him and he was a gentleman.  If she married him there would be an end of all her worries and troubles, and she could rest contentedly on his strong arm.  Woman, even gifted woman, is not made to fight the world with her own hand, and the prospect had allurements.  But while she thought, Eustace Meeson’s bonny face rose before her eyes, and, as it did so, a faint feeling of repulsion to the man who was pleading with her took form and colour in her breast.  Eustace Meeson, of course, was nothing to her; no word or