pardon--for expressions to convey inoffensively, and roundabout, her
conviction that Miss Hardie was a little, furious simpleton, the post
came and swept the subject away in a moment.

Two letters; one from Calcutta, one from Oxford.

They came quietly in upon one salver, and were opened and read with
pleasurable interest, but without surprise, or misgiving; and without the
slightest foretaste of their grave amid singular consequences.

Rivers deep and broad start from such little springs.


David's letter was of unusual length for him. The main topics were,
first, the date and manner of his return home. His ship, a very old one,
had been condemned in port: and he was to sail a fine new teak-built
vessel, the _Agra,_ as far as the Cape; where her captain, just recovered
from a severe illness, would come on board, and convey her and him to
England. In future, Dodd was to command one of the Company's large
steamers to Alexandria and back.

"It is rather a come-down for a sailor, to go straight ahead like a
wheelbarrow in all weathers with a steam-pot and a crew of coalheavers
But then I shall not be parted from my sweetheart such long dreary spells
as I have been thus twenty years, my dear love: so is it for me to
complain?"

The second topic was pecuniary; the transfer of their savings from India,
where interest was higher than at home, but the capital not so secure.