Having made over the whole of his worldly property to Joshua and Ellen "for better or worse," it was reasonable that Praiseworthy Meddler should have considerable weight in the family council of the Marvels. The arrangement whereby Joshua left his home a day before his ship was to sail was entirely of the Old Sailor's making; he and he alone was responsible for it. Naturally enough, when he had at first proposed it, he had met with opposition--especially from Mrs. Marvel, who wished Joshua to remain with them until the last moment. But, after a private conversation with the Old Sailor, she had yielded to his wish, and had even used arguments to induce Joshua's readier compliance. That being obtained, the Old Sailor informed them that he had a lady-friend at Gravesend, name Mrs. Eliza Friswell, who was a married woman herself with a family, and who kept a respectable boarding-house, with whom he had arranged that Ellen should stay until the anchor of the "Merry Andrew" was weighed; substantiating his statement by a letter from Mrs. Eliza Friswell to Mrs. Marvel, in which Mrs. Eliza--as the Old Sailor called her--undertook to look after Ellen as "one of her own." On the morning of Joshua's departure from Stepney, the Old Sailor, dressed in his best, and decorated with a bunch of flowers in honor of Ellen, had called for his pretty lass and had taken her away, leaving a message that if Joshua did not arrive at Gravesend exactly at the appointed time, Ellen had consented to run away with him--to wit, Praiseworthy Meddler--and get married. Very proud was the Old Sailor of his charge, and very tender and confidential was the nature of his communications to her as they made their way to Gravesend. What it was that made her blush and laugh and cry in turns--what it was that made her serious one moment and glad the next--was known only to themselves. Certainly no one was taken into their confidence until they arrived at Mrs. Eliza's, when, with a fatherly kiss, he delivered Ellen into the charge of that estimable matron. Mrs. Eliza's husband was a boatman, rough and strong as a boatman should be: with a great red face and great red hands, and with a voice that rumbled from his great deep chest with such thunderous power as to render such a thing as a whisper physically impossible. He was the owner of a fleet of four boats, which had been bought and paid for in shrimps and watercresses, or, at all events, with the profits made by Mrs. Eliza out of those delicacies, which she purveyed to the easily-satisfied amorous British public, with stale bread-and-butter and an imitation of tea, at nine pence per head. Praiseworthy Meddler was fraternizing with Mrs. Eliza's husband when Joshua made his appearance. Mrs. Eliza's husband immediately sheered off, and the Old Sailor took Joshua in tow. In response to the Old Sailor's remark that he was late, Joshua, who felt very despondent, said that parting from those at home took a longer time than he had expected.