'Then what do you think, mother, has become of 'em? You don't think
they've gone to sea, anyhow?'
'Not gone for sailors, certainly,' returned the mother with a
smile. 'But I can't help thinking that they have gone to some
foreign country.'
'I say,' cried Kit with a rueful face, 'don't talk like that,
mother.'
'I am afraid they have, and that's the truth,' she said. 'It's the
talk of all the neighbours, and there are some even that know of
their having been seen on board ship, and can tell you the name of
the place they've gone to, which is more than I can, my dear, for
it's a very hard one.'
'I don't believe it,' said Kit. 'Not a word of it. A set of idle
chatterboxes, how should they know!'
'They may be wrong of course,' returned the mother, 'I can't tell
about that, though I don't think it's at all unlikely that they're
in the right, for the talk is that the old gentleman had put by a
little money that nobody knew of, not even that ugly little man you
talk to me about--what's his name--Quilp; and that he and Miss
Nell have gone to live abroad where it can't be taken from them,
and they will never be disturbed.
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