had asked
permission to give the cabin offered him to the child whose life he had
saved, and the mother.

"It's for you to say yes or no, Lady Betty," announced Mr. Doremus,
"because it's your show; you set the top spinning."

"She is to have nothing more to do with the affair," Mrs. Ess Kay
answered for me quickly. "She is very sorry she commenced it, and has
lost the small interest she felt in the beginning. I do hope that
tramp, or beggar, or whatever he is, hasn't gotten it in his conceited
head that Lady Betty Bulkeley has bothered herself about his
insignificant affairs, or he'll be thrusting himself upon her notice in
some way which will be very disagreeable for _Me_, as her guardian."

"Well, he has sent a message of thanks to everyone concerned," said Mr.
Tommy Doremus. "I don't know whether he put Lady Betty at the top of
the list or not, and if that's the way you feel about our nice little
stunt, I expect it's just as well not to enquire further."

All the rest of the trip has been spoiled for me, by the hateful way in
which the excitement of that day ended, and it does seem too bad, for
everything might have been so nice.

Whether people really do make ill-natured jokes or not, I don't know;
but anyhow, Mrs. Ess Kay keeps hinting that they do, which is almost as
disagreeable for me. She says that they have nicknamed the bronze man
"Lady Betty's Hero"; and this has made me so self-conscious that I
can't bear to go near the part of the deck where you look over into the
steerage, for fear some silly creatures may think I'm trying to see
him. I feel as if I had been a conspicuous idiot, and I'm so
uncomfortable with Mrs. Ess Kay now, that I expect to be wretched in
her house. I can't talk it over even with Sally, because, after all,
she's Mrs. Ess Kay's cousin. I wish I had a nose two inches long, and
green hair, and then perhaps Mother and Vic would have let me stop at
home.

Still, I can't help taking an interest in ship life, and now that it's
the morning of the last day on board, I look back on it all as if it
ought to have been even more fun than it was.

I enjoyed hearing about the Marconigrams when they came; it seemed like
living in a tale by Stan's favourite, Jules Verne, to have messages
come flying to us in mid-ocean, like invisible carrier pigeons. I
enjoyed having Mr. Doremus tell me about his luck in the big pools,
when the men bet on the day's run; and I'm afraid I rather revelled in
seei