"God bless you, my dears," said he, with paternal solemnity. "Take care of yourselves, and let Paul do what he can for you. I will send you your money every quarter, and you must keep accounts--keep accounts strictly. And ask Paul what you want to know. Then you will get along all right, please God." "O yes, we shall get along all right," repeated Patty, whose sturdy optimism never failed her in the most trying moments. But when the old man was gone, and they stood on the tiny slip of deck that was available to stand on, feeling no necessity to cling to the railings as the little vessel heaved up and down in the wash of the tide that swirled amongst the piers of the jetty--when they looked at the lights of the town sprinkled round the shore and up the hillsides, at their own distant headland, unlighted, except by the white haze of the moon, at the now deserted jetty, and the apparently illimitable sea--when they realised for the first time that they were alone in this great and unknown world--even Patty's bold heart was inclined to sink a little. "Elizabeth," she said, "we _must_ not cry--it is absurd. What is there to cry for? Now, all the things we have been dreaming and longing for are going to happen--the story is beginning. Let us go to bed and get a good sleep before the steamer starts so that we are fresh in the morning--so that we don't lose anything. Come, Nelly, let us see if poor Dan is comfortable, and have some supper and go to bed." They cheered themselves with the sandwiches and the gooseberry wine that Mr. Brion's housekeeper had put up for them, paid a visit to Dan, who was in charge of an amiable cook (whom the old lawyer had tipped handsomely), and then faced the dangers and difficulties of getting to bed. Descending the brass-bound staircase to the lower regions, they paused, their faces flushed up, and they looked at each other as if the scene before them was something unfit for the eyes of modest girls. They were shocked, as by some specific impropriety, at the noise and confusion, the rough jostling and the impure atmosphere, in the morsel of a ladies' cabin, from which the tiny slips of bunks prepared for them were divided only by a scanty curtain. This was their first contact with the world, so to speak, and they fled from it. To spend a night in that suffocating hole, with those loud women their fellow passengers, was a too appalling prospect. So Elizabeth went to the captain, who knew their story, and admired their faces, and was inclined to be very kind to them, and asked his permission to occupy a retired corner of the deck. On his seeming to hesitate--they being desperately anxious not to give anybody any trouble--they assured him that the place above all others where they would like to make their bed was on the wedge-shaped platform in the bows, where they would be out of everybody's way. "But, my dear young lady, there is no railing there," said the captain, laughing at the proposal as a joke.