ffed to-day, and asked
to dinner to-morrow,--not that, indeed, you showed much judgment in your
management even of them."

This allusion to Aunt Fanny's spinsterhood was too palpable to pass
unnoticed, and she arose from the sofa with a face of outraged temper.

"It might be a question, my dear, between us, which had the least
success,--I, who never got a husband, or you, who married that one."

If Mr. Kennyfeck had intended by a tableau to have pointed the moral
of this allusion, he could not have succeeded better, as he sat bolt
upright in his chair, endeavoring through the murky cloud of his crude
ideas to catch one ray of light upon all he witnessed; he looked the
very ideal of hopeless stupidity. Miss O'Hara, like a skilful general,
left the field under the smoke of her last fire, and Mrs. Kennyfeck sat
alone, with what Homer would call "a heart-consuming rage," to meditate
on the past.

CHAPTER XXVII. LIEUTENANT SICKLETON'S PATENT PUMP.

The mariner's chart
He knew by heart,
And every current, rock, and shore,
From the drifting sand
Off Newfoundland,
To the son-split cliffs of Singapore.

Captain Pike.

Lord Charles Frobisher was never a very talkative companion, and as
Cashel's present mood was not communicative, they drove along, scarcely
interchanging a sentence, till the harbor of Kingstown came in sight,
and with it the gay pennons that fluttered from the mast of Roland's
schooner.

"I suppose that is your yacht,--the large craft yonder?"

"I hope so," said Cashel, enthusiastically; "she sits the water like a
duck, and has a fine rakish look about her."

"So, then, you never saw her before?"

"Never. I purchased her from description, taking her crew, commander,
and all, just as she sailed into Southampton from Zante, a month ago.
They sent me a drawing of her, her measurement, tonnage, and draught
of water, as also the log of her run in the Mediterranean;--yes, that's
she, I can recognize the water-line from the sketch."

"Is your visit on board going to be a long one?" drawled out Lord
Charles, languidly; "for I own I am not the least aquatic, and were it
not for lobsters and whitebait I vote the sea a humbug."

"Then I 'll say good-bye," said Cashel. "That blue water, that curling
ripple, and the fluttering of that bunting, have set me a-thinking about
a hundred things."

"You 'll dine with us at seven, won't you?"

"No, I 'll dine on board, o