ad to tell her story all over again; after which
she was led off to the cabin occupied by the captain and his wife (and
which thenceforth was occupied by Augusta, Mrs. Thomas, and little
Dick), the captain shaking down where he could. And here, for the first
time for nearly a week, she was able to wash and dress herself properly.
And oh, the luxury of it! Nobody knows what the delights of clean linen
really mean till he or she has had to dispense with it under
circumstances of privation; nor have they the slightest idea of what a
difference to one's well-being and comfort is made by the possession or
non-possession of an article so common as a comb. Whilst Augusta was
still combing out her hair with sighs of delight, Mrs. Thomas knocked at
the door and was admitted.

"My! Miss; what beautiful hair you have, now that it is combed out!" she
said in admiration; "why, whatever is that upon your shoulders?"

Then Augusta had to tell the tale of the tattooing, which by-the-way, it
struck her, it was wise to do so, seeing that she thus secured a witness
to the fact, that she was already tattooed on leaving Kerguelen Land,
and that the operation had been of such recent infliction that the flesh
was still inflamed with it. This was the more necessary as the tattooing
was undated.

Mrs. Thomas listened to the story with her mouth open, lost between
admiration of Augusta's courage, and regret that her shoulders should
have been ruined in that fashion.

"Well, the least that he" (alluding to Eustace) "can do is to marry you
after you have spoilt yourself in that fashion for his benefit," said the
practical Mrs. Thomas.

"Nonsense! Mrs. Thomas," said Augusta, blushing till the tattoo marks on
her shoulders looked like blue lines in a sea of crimson, and stamping
her foot with such energy that her hostess jumped.

There was no reason why she should give an innocent remark such a
warm reception; but then, as the reader will no doubt have observed,
the reluctance that some young women show to talking of the
possibility of their marriage to the man they happen to have set
their hearts on, is only equalled by the alacrity with which they
marry him when the time comes.

Having set Dick and Augusta down to a breakfast of porridge and coffee,
which both of them thought delicious, though the fare was really rather
coarse, Mrs. Thomas, being unable to restrain her curiosity, rowed off to
the land to see the huts and also Mr. Meeson's