r's father was so unkind,
and so wicked, and so unnatural, as to give their money to rogues, and
deprive them of their just bread.

Rosey began to cry more loudly than ever during the utterance of mamma's
sermon, so loudly that Clive peevishly cried out, "Hold your tongue," on
which the Campaigner, clutching her daughter to her breast again, turned
on her son-in-law, and abused him as she had abused his father before
him, calling out that they were both in a conspiracy to defraud her
child, and the little darling upstairs of its bread, and she would
speak, yes, she would, and no power should prevent her, and her money
she would have on Monday, as sure as her poor dear husband, Captain
Mackenzie, was dead, and she never would have been cheated so, yes,
cheated, if he had been alive.

At the word "cheated" Clive broke out with an execration--the poor
Colonel with a groan of despair--the widow's storm continued, and above
that howling tempest of words rose Mrs. Clive's piping scream, who went
off into downright hysterics at last, in which she was encouraged by her
mother, and in which she gasped out frantic ejaculations regarding baby;
dear, darling, ruined baby, and so forth.

The sorrow-stricken Colonel had to quell the women's tongues and shrill
anger, and his son's wrathful replies, who could not bear the weight of
Mrs. Mackenzie upon him; and it was not until these three were allayed,
that Thomas Newcome was able to continue his sad story, to explain what
had happened, and what the actual state of the case was, and to oblige
the terror-stricken women at length to hear something like reason.

He then had to tell them, to their dismay, that he would inevitably be
declared a bankrupt in the ensuing week; that the whole of his property
in that house, as elsewhere, would be seized and sold for the creditors'
benefit; and that his daughter had best immediately leave a home where
she would be certainly subject to humiliation and annoyance. "I would
have Clive, my boy, take you out of the country, and--and return to me
when I have need of him, and shall send for him," the father said fondly
in reply to a rebellious look on his son's face. "I would have you quit
this house as soon as possible. Why not to-night? The law blood-hound
may be upon us ere an hour is over--at this moment for what I know."

At that moment the door-bell was heard to ring, and the women gave
a scream apiece, as if the bailiffs were actually coming t