of savage hate of Old England and cannibal
glee at her doom. Mr. Barmby dropped his eyelashes on it, without
comment; nor did he reply to Skepsey's forlorn remark: 'We let them think
they could do it!'

Behold the downs. Breakfast is behind them. Miss Radnor likewise: if the
poor child has a name. We propose to supply the deficiency. She does not
declare war upon tobacco. She has a cultured and a beautiful voice. We
abstain from enlargeing on the charms of her person. She has resources,
which representatives of a rival creed would plot to secure.

'Skepsey, you have your quarters at the house of Miss Radnor's
relatives?' said Mr. Barmby, as they emerged from tunnelled chalk.

'Mention, that I think of calling in the course of the day.'

A biscuit had been their breakfast without a name.

They parted at the station, roused by the smell of salt to bestow a more
legitimate title on the day's restorative beginning. Down the hill, along
by the shops, and Skepsey, in sight of Miss Nesta's terrace, considered
it still an early hour for a visitor; so, to have the sea about him, he
paid pier-money, and hurried against the briny wings of a South-wester;
green waves, curls of foam, flecks of silver, under low-flying grey-dark
cloud-curtains shaken to a rift, where at one shot the sun had a line of
Nereids nodding, laughing, sparkling to him. Skepsey enjoyed it, at the
back of thoughts military and naval. Visible sea, this girdle of Britain,
inspired him to exultations in reverence. He wished Mr. Durance could
behold it now and have such a breastful. He was wishing he knew a song of
Britain and sea, rather fancying Mr. Durance to be in some way a bar to
patriotic poetical recollection, when he saw his Captain Dartrey mounting
steps out of an iron anatomy of the pier, and looking like a razor off a
strap.

'Why, sir!' cried Skepsey.

'Just a plunge and a dozen strokes,' Dartrey said; 'and you'll come to my
hotel and give me ten minutes of the "recreation"; and if you don't come
willingly, I shall insult your country.'

'Ah! I wish Mr. Durance were here,' Skepsey rejoined.

'It would upset his bumboat of epigrams. He rises at ten o'clock to a
queasy breakfast by candlelight, and proceeds to composition. His picture
of the country is a portrait of himself by the artist.'

'But, sir, Captain Dartrey, you don't think as Mr. Durance does of
England!'

'There are lots to flatter her, Skepsey! A drilling can't do her harm.
You