Note 12 — Chapter I · THE REFLECTIONS OF A YOUNG LADY ON GOING OUT INTO THE WORLD.

I am adding these few last lines in lead pencil to my great pacquet in haste, since Mr Fraser assures me that once past Beachy Head we shall find ourselves in rough water. I can’t at present call myself indisposed, though I am not quite at my ease, as I ought to be, since Mr Fraser says the wind is so light as to be almost a calm. The space on board is very much confined, particularly since the decks are still lumbered up with all kinds of packages, but I learn that these will before long be stowed away below. Pray, my dear friend, pardon these seaman’s phrases. My head is too confused to remember the correct terms. You would smile to see how we are all lodged here, the gentlemen in the great cabin, on shelves like those in a draper’s shop, and only large enough to hold a small mattress, and we in another apartment, similarly furnished. There are two ladies on board besides ourselves, but neither of them young, and both married, and about a dozen gentlemen. I had intended to write something of the day and a half since we left Deal, but find that the end of my paper is all but reached. You shall receive a long letter by the first opportunity that offers of sending one. Adieu, my dearest, dearest Emily.[12] Rest assured that you was ever in my thoughts from the moment of our parting.