So Tom knew not what to say or do; and not knowing, determined to wait on Providence, smartened himself as best he could, went up to the great house, and found Miss Mary.
"I'll tell her.

She will manage it somehow, if she is a woman; much more if she is an angel, as my father says." Mary looked very much shocked and grieved; answered hardly a word; but said at last, "Come in, while I go and see my father." He came into the smart drawing-room, which he could see was seldom used; for Mary lived in her own room, her father in his counting-house, or in his "den." In ten minutes she came down.

Tom thought she had been crying.
"I have settled it.

Poor unhappy man! We will talk of something more pleasant.

Tell me about your shipwreck, and that place,--Aberalva, is it not?
What a pretty name!" Tom told her, wondering then, and wondering long afterwards, how she had "settled it" with her father.