chilly and exceedingly uncomfortable night daunted her very little; but the impossibility of changing her clothes in public was obvious.
"Will you kindly direct me," she said, "to the ladies' cabin? I mean that reserved for first-class passengers."
The officer, whose temper was being tried by the bullocks, told her, with unnecessary emphasis, that the steamer did not carry first-class passengers, and had no ladies' cabin of any sort. Mrs. Crossley was a determined woman. She reflected that there must be some place on the steamer sufficiently screened from public view for her purpose. She went in search of it. Under the main deck, she discovered a similar enclosure, empty, shut off from the after portion of the ship by a whitewashed wooden partition about six feet high. It seemed, if not an ideal ladies' dressing-room, at least free from any observation, except that of the neighbouring cattle. She unpacked her parcel, and laid the garments ready at her feet. She divested herself of her hat and jacket. She unfastened her blouse. Then she was startled by a sudden sound of hoofs trampling down the narrow passage which led to her refuge. She looked round. A bullock came rushing, as it seemed furiously, with lowered head. For a moment the creature hesitated, not unnaturally, for he could not have expected to come face to face with a lady in the act of undressing; then, urged by the horns of his fellows behind, and
