Too dreadful! And dreadful, too, the private troubles which were
thickening fast; and which seemed, instead of drawing her mother to her
side, to estrange her more and more, for some mysterious reason. Her
mother was heavily in debt. This ten pounds of Lord Scoutbush's would
certainly clear off the miller's bill. Her scanty quarter's salary,
which was just due, would clear off a little more. But there was a
long-standing account of the wholesale grocer's for five-and-twenty
pounds, for which Mrs. Harvey had given a two months' bill. That bill
would become due early in September: and how to meet it, neither mother
nor daughter knew; it lay like a black plague-spot on the future, only
surpassed in horror by the cholera itself.

It might have been three or four days after, that Claude, lounging after
breakfast on deck, was hailed from a dingy, which contained Captain
Willis and Gentleman Jan.

"Might we take the liberty of coming aboard to speak with your honour?"

"By all means!" and up the side they came; their faces evidently big
with some great purpose, and each desirous that the other should begin.

"You speak, Captain," says Jan, "you'm oldest;" and then he began
himself. "If you please, sir, we'm come on a sort of deputation--Why
don't you tell the gentleman, Captain?" Willis seemed either doubtful
of the success of his deputation, or not over desirous thereof; for,
after trying to put John Beer forward as spokesman, he began:--

"I'm sorry to trouble you, sir, but these young men will have it so--and
no shame to them--on a matter which I think will come to nothing. But