"Well, my dear, it is coming, and you may as well bear it. There will be a bailiff in this house in no time. Yes, there'll be a man in possession, and how is your mother to stand that? You think whether you would rather just tell your grand friend the Duchess, and save your mother from the depths of humiliation, or whether you will let things take their course. Pattens is desperate, and he is the sort of man who will have no mercy. I have had to get the meat from another butcher--we can't hold out much longer. I have paid away the last shilling of the reserve fund I had in the bank. Oh dear, oh dear! why did Mr. Randolph go away? If he has gone down in the _Star of Hope_, why truly it is black night for us."