"Bless you, child, I'm not the one to leave a sinking ship. Oh, we'll go on a little bit longer, and it has cheered me a little to confide in you. I will work the ship for another week or so, and there will be an extra nice dinner to-night, and spring asparagus, real English grown, and your mother shall have the greater portion of it. Oh dear, oh dear, if the house were twice its size we _might_ make it pay, but as it is it's too big and it's too small; it's one of the betwixt-and-betweens, and betwixt-and-between things _never_ do, never, never. Child, forgive me, I am sorry to add to your cares. If it were not for your mother I should not mind a bit."