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either side of it were still the
shores of England, didn't seem as forlorn and ghostly as the
unknown land they were bound for. For suppose, Anna-Felicitas
inquired of Anna-Rose, who had been privately asking herself the
same thing, America didn't like them? Suppose the same sort of
difficulties were waiting for them over there that had dogged their
footsteps in England?
    "First of all," said Anna-Rose promptly, for she
prided herself on the readiness and clearness of her explanations,
"America will like us, because I don't see why it
shouldn't. We're going over to it in exactly the same
pleasant spirit, Anna-F.,--and don't you go forgetting it and
showing your disagreeable side--that the dove was in when it flew
across the waters to the ark, and with olive branches in our beaks
just the same as the dove's, only they're those two letters
to Uncle Arthur's friends."
    "But do you think Uncle Arthur's friends--" began
Anna-Felicitas, who had great doubts as to everything connected
with Uncle Arthur.
    "And secondly," continued Anna-Rose a little louder,
for she wasn't going to be interrupted, and having been asked a
question liked to give all the information in her power,
"secondly, America is the greatest of the neutrals except the
liebe Gott
, and is bound particularly to prize us because
we're so unusually and peculiarly neutral. What ever was more
neutral than you and me? We're neither one thing nor the other,
and yet at the same time we're both." Anna-Felicitas
remarked that it sounded rather as if they were the Athanasian
Creed.
    "And thirdly," went on Anna-Rose, waving this aside,
"there's £200 waiting for us over there, which is a very
nice warm thing to think of. We never had £200 waiting for us
anywhere in our lives before, did we,--so you remember that, and
don't get grumbling."
    Anna-Felicitas mildly said that she wasn't grumbling but
that she couldn't help thinking what a great deal depended on
the goodwill of Uncle Arthur's friends, and wished it had been
Aunt Alice's friends they had letters to instead, because Aunt
Alice's friends were more likely to like her.
    Anna-Rose rebuked her, and said that the proper spirit in which
to start on a great adventure was one of faith and enthusiasm, and
that one didn't have doubts.
    Anna-Felicitas said she hadn't any doubts really, but that
she was very hungry, not having had anything that could be called a
meal since breakfast, and that she felt like the sheep in
"Lycidas," the hungry ones who looked up and were not
fed, and she quoted the lines in case Anna-Rose didn't
recollect them (which Anna-Rose deplored, for she knew the lines by
heart, and if there was any quoting to be done liked to do it
herself), and said she felt just like that,--"Empty,"
said Anna-Felicitas, "and yet swollen. When do you suppose
people have food on board ships? I don't believe we'd mind
nearly so much about--oh well, about leaving England, if it was
after dinner."
    "I'm not minding leaving England," said Anna-Rose
quickly. "At least, not more than's just proper."
    "Oh, no more am I, of course," said Anna-Felicitas
airily. "Except what's proper."
    "And even if we were feeling it
dreadfully
," said Anna-Rose, with a little catch in
her voice, "which, of course, we're not, dinner
wouldn't make any difference. Dinner doesn't alter
fundamentals."
    "But it helps one to bear them," said
Anna-Felicitas.
    "Bear!" repeated Anna-Rose, her chin in the air.
"We haven't got much to bear. Don't let me hear you
talk of bearing things, Anna-F."
    "I won't after dinner," promised
Anna-Felicitas.
    They thought perhaps they had better ask somebody whether there
wouldn't soon be something to eat, but the other passengers had
all disappeared. They were by themselves on the gloomy deck, and
there were no lights. The row of cabin windows along the wall were
closely shuttered, and the door they had come through when first
they came on deck was shut too, and they couldn't find it in
the dark. It seemed so odd to be feeling