a young traveller as you say. But he is very good, and I have so
many to help me."

Here the Bishop returned and sat down once more to his lunch. We had
some further conversation, in which I learned that he and his wife
had gone out to the North-West just twelve years ago for the first
time. All their children had been born there, and they were
returning to work again after a brief summer holiday in England.
They told me all this with the most delightful frankness, and I
began to be grateful for my place at table, as without free and
congenial society at meal-time, life on board an ocean steamer
narrows down to something vastly uncomfortable. It was a bright and
beautiful afternoon on deck, and I soon found myself walking
energetically up and down with the Bishop. I commenced by asking him
some questions as to his work, place of residence and so on, and
once started he talked for a long time about his northern home in
the wilds of Canada.

"My wife and I had been only married two months when we went out,"
said he, with a smile at the remembrance. "We did not know what we
were going to."

"Would you have gone had you known?" I enquired as we paused in our
walk to take in a view of the Mersey we were leaving behind.

"Yes, I think so. Yes, I am quite sure we would. I was an Oxford man,
country-bred; my father is still alive, and has a small living in
Essex. I was imbued with the idea of doing something in the colonies
long after I was comfortably settled in an English living myself,
but I had always fancied it would be Africa. However, just at the