sping on the deck. And on board the Kangaroo there were no clerks and
editors on whom he could wreck his wrath!

"And now, my dear Miss Smithers," said Lady Holmhurst when, dinner
being over, they were sitting together in the moonlight, near the
wheel, "perhaps you will tell me why you don't like Mr. Meeson,
whom, by-the-way, I personally detest. But don't, if you don't wish
to, you know."

But Augusta did wish to, and then and there she unfolded her whole sad
story into her new-found friend's sympathetic ear; and glad enough the
poor girl was to find a confidant to whom she could unbosom her sorrows.

"Well, upon my word!" said Lady Holmhurst, when she had listened with
tears in her eyes to the history of poor little Jeannie's death, "upon my
word, of all the brutes I ever heard of, I think that this publisher of
yours is the worst! I will cut him, and get my husband to cut him too.
But no, I have a better plan than that. He shall tear up that agreement,
so sure as my name is Bessie Holmhurst; he shall tear it up, or--or"--and
she nodded her little head with an air of infinite wisdom.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. TOMBEY GOES FORWARD.

From that day forward, the voyage on the Kangaroo was, until the last
dread catastrophe, a very happy one for Augusta. Lord and Lady Holmhurst
made much of her, and all the rest of the first-class passengers followed
suit, and soon she found herself the most popular character on board. The
two copies of her book that there were on the ship were passed on from
hand to hand till they would hardly hang together, and, really, at last
she got quite tired of hearing of her own creations. But this was not
all; Augusta was, it will be remembered, an exceedingly pretty woman, and
melancholy as the fact may seem, it still remains a fact that a pretty
woman is in the eyes of most people a more interesting object than a man,
or than a lady, who is not "built that way." Thus it came to pass that
what between her youth, her beauty, her talent, and her misfortunes--for
Lady Holmhurst had not exactly kept that history to herself--Augusta was
all of a sudden elevated into the position of a perfect heroine. It
really almost frightened the poor girl, who had been accustomed to
nothing but sorrow, ill-treatment and grinding poverty, to suddenly find
herself in this strange position, with every man on board that great
vessel at her beck and call. But she was human, and therefore, of course
she enjoyed it.