Reaching Melbourne Things went on in the same way till the night before the morning on which they were to enter Hobson's Bay.

Hobson's Bay, as every one knows, is the inlet of the sea into which the little river runs on which Melbourne is built.

After leaving the tropics they had gone down south, and had encountered showers and wind, and cold weather, but now they had come up again into warm latitudes and fine autumn weather,--for it was the beginning of March, and the world out there is upside down.

Before that evening nothing had been said between Mrs Smith and John Caldigate as to any future; not a word to indicate that when the journey should be over, there would or that there would not be further intercourse between them.

She had purposely avoided any reference to a world after this world of the ship, even refusing, in her half-sad but half-joking manner, to discuss matters so far ahead.