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“I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing Sir Thomas Kicklebury at Knightsbridge House,” Lady Knightsbridge said, with something of sadness.

“Indeed!” and Kicklebury had never told her! He laughed at her when she talked about great people: he told her all sorts of ridiculous stories when upon this theme. But, at any rate, the acquaintance was made: Lady Kicklebury would not leave Lady Knightsbridge; and, even in the throes of sea-sickness, and the secret recesses of the cabin, WOULD talk to her about the world, Lord Pimlico, and her father, General Guff, late aide-de-camp to the Duke of York.

That those throes of sickness ensued, I need not say. A short time after passing Ramsgate, Serjeant Lankin, who had been exceedingly gay and satirical–(in his calm way; he quotes Horace, my favorite bits as an author, to myself, and has a quiet snigger, and, so to speak, amontillado flavor, exceedingly pleasant)–Lankin, with a rueful and livid countenance, descended into his berth, in the which that six foot of serjeant packed himself I don’t know how.

When Lady Knightsbridge went down, down went Kicklebury. Milliken and his wife stayed, and were ill together on deck. A palm of glory ought to be awarded to that man for his angelic patience, energy, and suffering. It was he who went for Mrs. Milliken’s maid, who wouldn’t come to her mistress; it was he, the shyest of men, who stormed the ladies’ cabin–that maritime harem–in order to get her mother’s bottle of salts; it was he who went for the brandy-and-water, and begged, and prayed, and besought his adored Lavinia to taste a leetle drop. Lavinia’s reply was, “Don’t–go away–don’t tease, Horace,” and so forth. And, when not wanted, the gentle creature subsided on the bench, by his wife’s feet, and was sick in silence.

[Mem–In married life, it seems to me, that it is almost always Milliken and wife, or just the contrary. The angels minister to the tyrants; or the gentle, hen-pecked husband cowers before the superior partlet. If ever I marry, I know the sort of woman I will choose; and I won’t try her temper by over-indulgence, and destroy her fine qualities by a ruinous subserviency to her wishes.]

Little Miss Fanny stayed on deck, as well as her sister, and looked at the stars of heaven, as they began to shine there, and at the Foreland lights as we passed them. I would have talked with her; I would have suggested images of poesy, and thoughts of beauty; I would have whispered the word of sentiment–the delicate allusion–the breathing of the soul that longs to find a congenial heart–the sorrows and aspirations of the wounded spirit, stricken and sad, yet not QUITE despairing; still knowing that the hope-plant lurked in its crushed ruins–still able to gaze on the stars and the ocean, and love their blazing sheen, their boundless azure. I would, I say, have taken the opportunity of that stilly night to lay bare to her the treasures of a heart that, I am happy to say, is young still; but circumstances forbade the frank outpouring of my poet soul: in a word, I was obliged to go and lie down on the flat of my back, and endeavor to control OTHER emotions which struggled in my breast.

Once, in the night-watches, I arose, and came on deck; the vessel was not, methought, pitching much; and yet–and yet Neptune was inexorable. The placid stars looked down, but they gave me no peace. Lavinia Milliken seemed asleep, and her Horace, in a death-like torpor, was huddled at her feet. Miss Fanny had quitted the larboard side of the ship, and had gone to starboard; and I thought that there was a gentleman beside her; but I could not see very clearly, and returned to the horrid crib, where Lankin was asleep, and the German fiddler underneath him was snoring like his own violoncello.