And as they themselves were determined not to seek associates among their more aristocratic neighbours, they were left to themselves and solitary for some few days.

But this was a condition not at all suited to Dick Shand's temperament, and it was not long before he had made both male and female acquaintances.
'Have you observed that woman in the brown straw hat ?' Dick said to Caldigate, one morning, as they were leaning together on the forepart of the vessel against one of the pens in which the fowls were kept.

They were both dressed according to the parts they were acting, and which they intended to act, as second-class passengers and future working miners.

Any one knowing in such matters would have seen that they were over-dressed; for the real miner, when he is away from his work, puts on his best clothes, and endeavours to look as little rough as possible.
And all this had no doubt been seen and felt, and discounted among our friends' fellow-passengers.
'I have seen her every day, of course,' said Caldigate, 'and have been looking at her for the last half hour.' 'She is looking at us now.' 'She seems to me to be very attentive to the stocking she is mending.' 'Just a woman's wiles.

At this moment she can't hear us, but she knows pretty nearly what we are saying by the way our lips are going.