inly for the
defensive in war, on a day when they stood together in the park, watching
the slow passage of that very ship, the Hastings, along the broad water,
distant below them. The 'swarms of swift vessels of attack,' she
recollected particularly, and 'small wasps and rams under mighty
steam-power,' that he used to harp on when declaring that England must be
known for the assailant in war: she was to 'ray out' her worrying fleets.
'The defensive is perilous policy in war': he had said it. She
recollected also her childish ridicule of his excess of emphasis: he
certainly had foresight.'

Mr. Austin and Mr. Tuckham came strolling in conversation round the house
to the terrace. Beauchamp bowed to the former, nodded to the latter,
scrutinizing him after he had done so, as if the flash of a thought were
in his mind. Tuckham's radiant aspect possibly excited it: 'Congratulate
me!' was the honest outcry of his face and frame. He was as
over-flowingly rosy as a victorious candidate at the hustings commencing
a speech. Cecilia laid her hand on an urn, in dread of the next words
from either of the persons present. Her father put an arm in hers, and
leaned on her. She gazed at her chamber window above, wishing to be
wafted thither to her seclusion within. The trembling limbs of physical
irresoluteness was a new experience to her.

'Anything else in the paper, colonel? I've not seen it to-day,' said
Beauchamp, for the sake of speaking.

'No, I don't think there's anything,' Colonel Halkett replied. 'Our
diplomatists haven't been shining much: that 's not our forte.'

'No: it's our field for younger sons.'

'Is it? Ah! There's an expedition against the hilltribes in India, and
we're such a peaceful nation, eh? We look as if we were in for a
complication with China.'

'Well, sir, we must sell our opium.'

'Of course we must. There's a man writing about surrendering Gibraltar!'

'I'm afraid we can't do that.'

'But where do you draw the line?' quoth Tuckham, very susceptible to a
sneer at the colonel, and entirely ignorant of the circumstances
attending Beauchamp's position before him. 'You defend the Chinaman; and
it's questionable if his case is as good as the Spaniard's.'

'The Chinaman has a case against our traders. Gibraltar concerns our
imperial policy.'

'As to the case against the English merchants, the Chinaman is for
shutting up his millions of acres of productive land, and the action of
commerce is merely