“I.E.M.  Samarang.  St. Helena.

“You will wonder, my dear Emily, to hear again before you see me:  but I am glad of this providential opportunity, as it may serve to prepare us both.  Naturally enough you will ask, why Charles cannot accompany this letter?  I will tell you, dear, in one word—­Mrs. Mackie is now lying very ill on shore; and, as far as our poor ship is concerned, you shall hear about it all anon.  Several of the passengers, who were in a hurry to get home, have left us, and gone in the packet-boat that takes you this letter:  gladly, as you know, would I have accompanied them, for I long to see you, poor dear girl; but it was impossible to leave the old woman, upon whom alone, under God, our hopes of earthly happiness depend:  if, alas! we still can dream about such hopes.

“Oh, Emily—­I heartily wish that, having finished my embassage by that instantaneous finding of the old Scotch nurse, I had never been so superfluous as to have left those letters of introduction, wherewith you kindly supplied me, in an innocent wish to help our cause.  But I felt solitary too, waiting at Madras for the next ship to England; and in my folly, forgetful of the single aim with which I had come, Jeanie Mackie, to wit, I thought I might as well use my present opportunities, and see what I could of the place and its inhabitants.

“With that view, I left my letters at Government House, at Mr. Clarkson’s, Colonel Bunting’s, Mrs. Castleton’s, and elsewhere, according to direction; and immediately found answer in a crowd of invitations.  I need not vex you nor myself, Emmy, writing as I do with a heavy, heavy heart, by describing gayeties in which I felt no pleasure, even when amongst them, for my Emmy was not there:  splendour, prodigality, and red-hot rooms, only made endurable by perpetually fanning punkahs:  pompous counsellors, authorities, and other men in office, and a glut of military uniforms:  vulgar wealth, transparent match-making, and predominating dullness:  along with some few of the charities and kindnesses of life (Mrs. Bunting, in particular, is an amiable, motherly, good-hearted woman), all these you will readily fancy for yourself.

“My trouble is deeper than any thing so slight as the common satiations of ennui:  for I have heard in these circles in which your—­my—­the general, I mean, chiefly mixed, so much of that ill-rumour that it cannot all be false:  they knew it all, and were certain of it all, too well, Emily, dear.  And I have been pestering Nurse Mackie night and day; but the old woman is so afraid of being left behind any where, or thrown overboard, or dropped, upon some desert rock, that she is quite cross, and won’t say a single word in answer, even when I tell her all these terrible tales.  Her resolution is, not to reveal one syllable more, until she sets foot on England; and several people at Madras annoyed me exceedingly by saying, that this kind of thing is an old trick