And Iris broke down, and sobbed with her face in her hands. When she lifted her head again, Maggie was kneeling at her feet. ‘Don’t you cry, dear mistress,’ she was saying, in her rough manner; ‘you shall never starve whilst I have two hands to work for you. Don’t you cry. Oh! I’ve bin a bad gal. Sometimes I think I must tell you all, but there--it wouldn’t make matters better, and it might make ’em worse. For you lets me serve you now (don’t you, my pretty?), and then you mightn’t. But don’t talk of starving, for while I live, you shall never want for bread and meat.’ ‘It was silly of me, Maggie, to say such a thing, for I can work as well as you, though not perhaps in the same way, and I would never eat your bread whilst I could make my own. Thank you, my dear girl, all the same, and I shall never forget you have been a true, good friend to me. But, Maggie, I have settled on another plan. I will _not_ be left here behind in England. I am Mr Harland’s wife, and I have a right to be where he is. So when I had made sure he was to sail in the _Pandora_, I took a second-class berth in the same vessel, and I shall go out to New Zealand with him.’ Maggie leapt to her feet with surprise. ‘Lor’, mistress! you don’t never mean what you say?’ ‘I do, Maggie. Why not? Mr Harland gave me some money last night to keep us whilst he was away, and I have spent it on a ticket for the _Pandora_. It cost a lot,’ continued Iris, with a sigh,--twenty-five guineas, and I have only a few shillings left. But I couldn’t help it. I _must_ go with him.’ ‘And what will you do when you gets on board, mistress?’ ‘Oh! I sha’n’t discover myself to him till we get to land, Maggie. He is going first class with some rich friends, who have given him an appointment out there, and I don’t want them to know about me. But when we get to New Zealand, I shall tell Mr Harland he must either take me with him, or make me an allowance to live on; and if he refuses, I shall appeal to his employers to see me righted. Why should he make money, and I derive no benefit from it? I have suffered enough, Heaven knows! since I have married him, without being cast off, as if I were some guilty creature not fit to be his wife. I will not stand it any longer. I have sworn that I will not.’ Maggie had been listening to this tirade with wide open, glistening eyes, and at its close she threw herself prostrate on the hearthrug. ‘And you will go away from England to live across the sea and maybe never come back again, and leave poor Maggie here all alone. Oh, mistress I cannot bear it. It will kill me if I don’t go too!’ ‘My poor Maggie!’ cried Iris, with genuine distress. ‘I never thought of you. But what _can_ I do? I can only just pay for my own passage and my fare to Liverpool. It leaves me nothing even to buy another dress.’