't get rid of the body. When his eyes
opened it was staring him full in the face. There was the horrible
Hominy talking deep truths in a melodious snuffle, and pouring forth her
mental endowments to such an extent that the Major's bitterest enemy,
hearing her, would have forgiven him from the bottom of his heart.
Martin might have done something desperate if the gong had not sounded
for supper; but sound it did most opportunely; and having stationed Mrs
Hominy at the upper end of the table he took refuge at the lower end
himself; whence, after a hasty meal he stole away, while the lady was
yet busied with dried beef and a saucer-full of pickled fixings.

It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of Mrs Hominy's freshness
next day, or of the avidity with which she went headlong into moral
philosophy at breakfast. Some little additional degree of asperity,
perhaps, was visible in her features, but not more than the pickles
would have naturally produced. All that day she clung to Martin. She
sat beside him while he received his friends (for there was another
Reception, yet more numerous than the former), propounded theories, and
answered imaginary objections, so that Martin really began to think he
must be dreaming, and speaking for two; she quoted interminable passages
from certain essays on government, written by herself; used the Major's
pocket-handkerchief as if the snuffle were a temporary malady, of which
she was determined to rid herself by some means or other; and, in short,
was such a remarkable companion, that Martin quite settled it between
himself and his conscience, that in any new settlement it would be
absolutely necessary to have such a person knocked on the head for the
general peace of society.

In the meantime Mark was busy, from early in the morning until late
at night, in getting on board the steamboat such provisions, tools and
other necessaries, as they had been forewarned it would be wise to take.
The purchase of these things, and the settlement of their bill at the
National, reduced their finances to so low an ebb, that if the captain
had delayed his departure any longer, they would have been in almost as
bad a plight as the unfortunate poorer emigrants, who (seduced on board
by solemn advertisement) had been living on the lower deck a whole week,
and exhausting their miserable stock of provisions before the voyage
commenced. There they were, all huddled together with the engine and the
fires