"Don't say anything so foolish," said Miss Wodehouse, a little nettled. "Do you suppose I don't know and see _that_ Mr Chatham coming and going? How often has he been seen since the first time, Nettie? and do you suppose it's all been benevolence? My dear, I know better." Nettie looked up with a startled glance. She did not blush, nor betray any pleasant consciousness. She cast one dismayed look back towards the cottage, and another at Miss Wodehouse. "Can _that_ be why he comes?" said Nettie, with quiet horror. "Indeed, I never thought of it before--but all the same, I shall never marry anybody. Do you imagine," cried the brilliant creature, flashing round upon poor Miss Wodehouse, so as to dazzle and confuse that gentlewoman, "that a man has only to intend such a thing and it's all settled? I think differently. Twenty thousand Chathams would not move me. I shall never marry anybody, if I live to be as old as--as you, or Methuselah, or anybody. It is not my lot. I shall take the children out to Australia, and do the best I can for them. Three children want a great deal of looking after--and after a while in Carlingford, you will all forget that there ever was such a creature as Nettie. No, I am not crying. I never cry. I should scorn to cry about it. It is simply _my business_. That is what it is. One is sorry, of course, and now and then it feels hard, and all that. But what did one come into the world for, I should like to know? Does anybody suppose it was just to be comfortable, and have one's own way? I have had my own way a great deal--more than most people. If I get crossed in some things, I have to bear it. That is all I am going to say. I have got other things to do, Miss Wodehouse. I shall never marry anybody all my life." "My dear, if you are thrown upon this Mr Chatham for society all the time of the voyage, and have nobody else to talk to----" said the prudent interlocutor. "Then we'll go in another ship," cried Nettie, promptly; "that is easily managed. I know what it is, a long voyage with three children--they fall up the cabin-stairs, and they fall down the forecastle; and they give you twenty frights in a day that they will drop overboard. One does not have much leisure for anything--not even for thinking, which is a comfort sometimes," added Nettie, confidentially, to herself.