seemed to say, "The danger is now over: thanks to my precautions."

Timaru was reached very late, and the best accommodation at the inn
placed at our disposal. Still, in those distant days there was no
such thing as a private sitting room, and we had all to eat our
supper in the same rough-boarded little apartment. But in all my
varied wanderings in different parts of the world, when the
accidents of travel have thrown me for a time among the class whom
we foolishly speak of as the lower orders, I have never yet had to
complain of the slightest inconvenience or disagreeableness from my
fellow-travellers. On the contrary, I have always received the most
chivalrous politeness at their hands, and have noticed how ready
they were to forego their usual tastes and habits lest they should
cause me any annoyance. I wonder whether fine gentlemen in their
splendid clubs would be quite so willing to spoil the pleasure of
their evening if any accident were to throw an unwelcome lady
amongst them? At all events, they could not be _more_
self-sacrificing than my friends in fustian jackets have always
proved themselves, and on this particular evening the landlord of
the inn was so amazed at the orders for tea and coffee instead of
the usual "nips" of spirits, that he was constrained to inquire the
reason. A stalwart drover who was sitting opposite to me at the
rude table, murmured from the depths of his great beard, in an
oracular whisper, "The smell of speerits might'nt be agreeble like
to the lady." In vain I protested that I did not mind it in the
least; tea and coffee was the order of the evening, and solemn
silence and good behaviour. No smoking, no songs, no conviviality
of any sort. I would fain have shown my appreciation of their
courtesy by talking to them; but alas, I was one vast ache all over!
Although the road had been a dead level, sixteen hours of jolting