n one in earnest be other than careless? I shall walk on that line up
to the end. Who makes me deviate is my enemy!"

The playful little person balanced herself to make one foot follow the
other along a piece of washed grey rope on the shingle. Soon she had to
stretch out her hand for help, and the captain at full arm's length
conducted her to the final knot.

"Arrived safe!" she said, smiling.

"But not disengaged," he rejoined, in similar style.

"Please!" She doubled her elbow to give a little tug for her fingers.

"No." He pressed them tighter.

"Pray?"

"No."

"Must I speak to somebody else to get me released?"

"Would you?"

"Must I?"

"Thank heaven, he is not yet in existence!"

'Husband' being implied. Games of this sweet sort are warranted to carry
little people as far as they may go swifter than any other invention of
lively Satan.

The yachting party, including Mrs. Chump, were at the breakfast-table,
and that dumb guest had done all the blushing for Lady Charlotte, when
Wilfrid entered, neat, carefully brushed, and with ready answers, though
his face could put on no fresh colours. To Mrs. Chump he bent, passing,
and was pushed away and drawn back. "Your eyes!" she whispered.

"My--yeyes!" went Wilfrid, in schoolboy style; and she, who rarely
laughed, was struck by his humorous skill, saying to Sir Twickenham,
beside her: "He's as cunnin' as a lord!"

Sir Twickenham expressed his ignorance of lords having usurped priority
in that department. Frightened by his portentous parliamentary
phraseology, she remained tolerably demure till the sitting was over: now
sidling in her heart to the sins of the great, whom anon she angrily
reproached. Her principal idea was, that as the world was discovered to
be so wicked, they were all in a boat going to perdition, and it would be
as well to jump out immediately: but while so resolving, she hung upon
Lady Charlotte's looks and little speeches, altogether seduced by so
fresh and frank a sinner. If safe from temptation, here was the soul of a
woman in great danger of corruption.

"Among the aristocracy," thought Mrs. Chump, "it's just the male that
hangs his head, and the female struts and is sprightly." The contrast
between Lady Charlotte and Wilfrid (who when he ceased to set
outrageously, sat like a man stricken by a bolt), produced this
reflection: and in spite of her disastrous vision of the fate of the boat
they were in, Mrs. Chump owned to the int