"We must wish!" said George. "I know what I wish."

"What?"

"That we may get home quickly."

"My wish is that we may find no disappointment when we get there," said
the governess, sadly.

"Disappointment!"

He started as if he had been struck, and asked what she meant by talking
of disappointment.

"I mean this," she said, speaking rapidly, and with a restless motion of
her thin hands; "I mean that as the end of the voyage draws near, hope
sinks in my heart; and a sick fear comes over me that at the last all
may not be well. The person I go to meet may be changed in his feelings
toward me; or he may retain all the old feeling until the moment of
seeing me, and then lose it in a breath at sight of my poor wan face,
for I was called a pretty girl, Mr. Talboys, when I sailed for Sydney,
fifteen years ago; or he may be so changed by the world as to have grown
selfish and mercenary, and he may welcome me for the sake of my fifteen
years' savings. Again, he may be dead. He may have been well, perhaps,
up to within a week of our landing, and in that last week may have taken
a fever, and died an hour before our vessel anchors in the Mersey. I
think of all these things, Mr. Talboys, and act the scenes over in my
mind, and feel the anguish of them twenty times a day. Twenty times a
day," she repeated; "why I do it a thousand times a day."