ou still find yourself tolerably comfortable.'

'I shall be glad to have it over,' said Caldigate, who had in truth
become disgusted with Dick's snoring.

'I daresay,--I am sure we shall. My young people are getting very tired
of it. Children, when they are accustomed to every comfort on shore, of
course feel it grievously. I suppose you are rather crowded?'

'Of course we are crowded. One can't have a twenty-foot square room on
board ship.'

'No, indeed. But then you are with your friend, and that is much
pleasanter than a stranger.'

'That would depend on whether the stranger snored, Mrs. Callander.'

'Don't talk of snoring, Mr. Caldigate. If you only heard Mr. Callander!
But, as I was saying, you must have some very queer characters down
there.' She had not been saying anything of the kind, but she found a
difficulty in introducing her subject.

'Take them altogether, they are a very decent, pleasant, well-mannered
set of people, and all of them in earnest about their future lives.'

'Poor creatures! But I dare say they're very good.' Then she paused a
moment, and looked into his face. She had undertaken a duty, and she was
not the woman to shrink from it. So she told herself at that moment. And
yet she was very much afraid of him as she saw the squareness of his
forehead, and the set of his mouth. And there was a frown across his
brow, as though he were preparing himself to fight. 'You must have found
it hard to accommodate yourselves to them, Mr. Caldigate?'

'Not at all.'

'Of course we all know that you are a gentleman.'

'I am much obliged to you; but I do not know any word that requires a
definition so much as that. I am going to work hard to earn my bread;
and I suppose these people are going to do the same.'

'There always will be some danger in such society,' said Mrs. Callander.

'I hope I may escape any great evil.'

'I hope so too, Mr. Caldigate. You probably have had a long roll of
ancestors before you?'

'We all have that;--back to Adam.'

'Ah! but I mean a family roll, of which you ought to be proud;--all
ladies and gentlemen.'

'Upon my word I don't know.'

'So I hear, and I have no doubt it is true.' Then she paused, looking
again into his face. It was very square, and his lips were hard, and
there was a gleam of anger in his eyes. She wished herself back again in
her own part of the ship; but she had boasted to Miss Green that she was
not the woman to give up a duty when she ha