"How kind of you to think of it," Lindsay said. "This was the first by
which I could possibly hear from England."
"Ah, well, now you will have no more anxiety. Letters from on board ship
are always difficult to write and unsatisfactory," Alicia said. Miss
Filbert's had been postcards, with a wide unoccupied margin at the
bottom.
"The _Sutlej_ seems to have arrived on the 3rd; that's a day later,
isn't it, than we made out she would be?"
Alicia consulted her memory and found she couldn't be sure. Lindsay was
vexed by a similar uncertainty, but they agreed that the date was early
in the month.
"Did they get comfortably through the Canal? I remember being tied up
there for forty-eight hours once."
"I don't think she says, so I fancy it must have been all right. The
voyage is bound to do her good. I've asked the Simpsons to watch
particularly for any sign of malaria later, though. One can't possibly
know what she may have imported from that slum in Bentinck street."
"And what was it like after Gibraltar?" Alicia asked, with a barely
perceptible glance at the envelope edges showing over his breast pocket.
"I'll look," and he sorted one out. It was pink and glossy, with a
diagonal water-stripe.
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