You will start in the steamer this evening,
and get into Jersey at nine or ten o'clock tomorrow morning; and
if I am not there before you, I shall not be many hours after you."
"Well, if it must be it must," Mrs. Grantham said, with an air of
resignation. "Come, Minnie, let us put a few things into a handbag
for tonight. You see the skipper is not to be moved by our pleadings."
"That is the worst of you married women, Fanny," Miss Graham said,
with a little pout. "You get into the way of doing as you are
ordered. I call it too bad. Here have we been cruising about for
the last fortnight, with scarcely a breath of wind, and longing
for a good brisk breeze and a little change and excitement, and now
it comes at last, we are to be packed off in a steamer. I call it
horrid of you, Mr. Virtue. You may laugh, but I do."
Tom Virtue laughed, but he showed no signs of giving way, and ten
minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Grantham and Miss Graham took their places
in the gig, and were rowed into Southampton Harbor, off which the
Seabird was lying.
The last fortnight had been a very pleasant one, and it had cost
the owner of the Seabird as much as his guests to come to the
conclusion that it was better to break up the party for a few hours.
Tom Virtue had, up to the age of five-and-twenty, been possessed
of a sufficient income for his wants.
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