The other passengers listened aloof. The _Coromandel_ was
crowded, but you could have drawn a wide circle round her chair. On the
morning of the fourth day out--she had not felt quite well enough for
adventures before--she found her way to the second-class saloon, being
no doubt fully justified of her conscience in abandoning the first to
the flippancies of its preference.
In the second-class end the tone was certainly more like that of
Plymouth. Laura had a grateful sense of this in coming, almost at once,
upon a little group gathered together for praise and prayer, of which
four or five persons of both sexes, labelled "S. A.," naturally formed
the centre. They were not only praying and praising without
discouragement, they had attracted several other people who had brought
their chairs into near and friendly relation, and even joined sometimes
in the chorus of the hymns. There was a woman in mourning who cried a
good deal--her tears seemed to refresh the salvationists and inspired
them to louder and more cheerful efforts. There was a man in a wide,
soft felt hat with the malaria of the Terai in the hollows under his
eyes; there was a Church Missionary with an air of charity and
forbearance, and the bushy-eyed colonel of a native regiment, looking
vigilant against ridicule, with his wife, whose round, red little face
continually waxed and waned in a smile of true contentment.
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