d--the bread--the butter--the
tea--eh, Pickle?"

"Delicious, uncle."

"The fat of the land, Mrs Champernowne," continued the doctor; "the
riches of these smiling pastures. Now if your friend Napoleon Bonaparte
had come with his locusts to devastate the land, his hordes such as we
have seen safely imprisoned yonder--"

"Yes, sir," interrupted Mrs Champernowne eagerly; "that's what I came
to tell you. I thought I might just run over to my neighbour's, whose
master has come back from the hunt, and I thought that you would like to
hear. Those two French prisoners have got right away."

"Hooray!" shouted Rodd, springing from the chair, and to Mrs
Champernowne's astonishment catching her round the waist and waltzing
her about the room. "Three cheers for the poor prisoners! Hurrah!
Hurrah! Hurrah!"

And Uncle Paul pushed back his chair, puckered up his forehead, stared
hard at his nephew, and grunted out--

"Humph!"

"Oh, my dear, don't! Pray don't!" panted Mrs Champernowne, whom Nature
had made middle-aged, round and plump. "You are taking away all my
breath. But my neighbour's master says that he thinks they have made
for Salcombe, where they will perhaps get aboard one of the orange boats
and be put back in their own country."

"Hah!" said Uncle Paul, leaning back in his chair to take hold of his
bunch of seals and haul up by the broad watered silk ribbon the big
double-cased gold watch that ticked away from where it reclined warm and
comfortable at the bottom of his fob.

"Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks!"

"That was a very fine tea, Mrs Champernowne. Now, Pickle, my boy, I
think it would be very nice to go and sit for half-an-hour in the arbour
under the roses, while I kill the green fly--the aphides, Mrs
Champernowne--which increase and multiply at a rate which is absolutely
marvellous. Pickle, my boy, I hope you will never grow up as weak and
self-indulgent as your uncle. Fill me my long clay pipe."

CHAPTER FOUR.

OH, SUMMER NIGHT!

Mrs Champernowne's arbour was a very homely affair, consisting of four
fir poles to form as many corners, and a few more nailed and pegged
together to form gables. Nature built all the rest with roses and
honeysuckle and some vigorous ivy at the back, the roses spiring up, the
honeysuckle creeping in and out among the long strands and holding them
together, while the ivy ran rapidly up the back till it could grow no
higher, and