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THROUGH THE GATES OF THE EAST
43
13th.

We are in the Hooghly and shall be in Kidderpore Dock to-morrow morning early. Actually the voyage is at an end. I may as well finish this letter and send it with the mail which leaves Calcutta to-morrow. We can't pack, because Mrs. Albert Murray is occupying all the cabin and most of the passage. We shall creep down when she is quite done and put our belongings together.

Everyone is flying about writing luggage labels, and getting their boxes up from the hold, and counting things. Curiously enough, I am feeling rather depressed; the end of anything is horrid, even a loathed sea-voyage. After all, it isn't a bad old ship, and the people have been nice. To-night I am filled with kindness to everyone. Even Mrs. Albert Murray seems to swim in a rosy and golden haze, and I am conscious of quite an affection for her, though I expect, when in a little I go down to the cabin and find her fussing and accusing us of losing her things, I shall dislike her again with some intensity. We have all laughed and played and groaned together, and now we part. No, I shan't say "Ships that pass in the night." Several people—mothers whose babies I have held and others—have given