'
'I think not,' said Albinia. 'Humility will make your severity more
gentle, and you will soften, and win love and esteem.'
She looked up, but cried, 'I shall never make up to Gilbert nor to
grandmamma!'
Albinia felt it almost as hard to leave her as the two little ones.
When once on her journey, and feeling each moment an advance towards
the goal, Albinia was less unhappy than she could have thought
possible; she trusted to her brother, and enjoyed the absence of
responsibility, and while he let her go on, could give her mind to
what pleased and interested him, and he, who was an excellent
courier, so managed that there were few detentions to overthrow her
equanimity on the way to Marseilles.
But when the Vectis came in sight of the rocky isle, with its white
stony heights, the heart-sickness of apprehension grew over her, and
she saw, as in a mist, the noble crescent-shaped harbour, the stately
ramparts, mighty batteries, the lofty terraces of flat-roofed
dwellings, apparently rather hewn out of, than built on, the dazzling
white stone, between the intense blue of the sky above and of the sea
below. Her eye roamed as in a dream over the crowds of gay boats
with white awnings, and the motley crowds of English and natives, the
boatmen screaming and fighting for the luggage, and beggars
plaintively whining out their entreaties for small coins. Her
brother Maurice had been at Malta as a little boy, and remembered the
habits of the place enough, as soon as they had set foot on shore, to
secure a brown-skinned loiterer, in Phrygian cap, loose trousers, and
crimson sash, to act as guide and porter.
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