ity, for
Truth herself would find it difficult to select an expression
sufficiently appropriate to apply to the beautiful voice of Rose Ellis!"

"Hey-day, young man," exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, as he carefully filled
his pipe with precious weed, "your oratorical powers are uncommon!
Surely thy talents had been better bestowed in the Church or at the Bar
than in the sickroom or the hospital. Demosthenes himself would have
paled before thee, lad--though, if truth must be told, there is a dash
more sound than sense in thine eloquence."

"Sense, uncle! Surely your own good sense must compel you to admit that
Rose sings splendidly?"

"Well, I won't gainsay it," replied Mr Donnithorne, "now that Rose has
left the room, for I don't much care to bespatter folk with too much
praise to their faces. The child has indeed a sweet pipe of her own.
By the way, you were asking about her guitar when I came in; I'll tell
you about that.

"Its history is somewhat curious," said Mr Donnithorne, passing his
fingers through the bunch of gay ribbons that hung from the head of the
instrument. "You have heard, I dare say, of the burning of Penzance by
the Spaniards more than two hundred years ago; in the year 1595, I think
it was?"

"I have," answered Oliver, "but I know nothing beyond the fact that such
an event took place. I should like to hear the details of it
exceedingly."

"Well," continued the old gentleman, "our country was, as you know, at
war with Spain at the time; but it no more entered into the heads of
Cornishmen that the Spaniards would dare to land on our shores than that
the giants would rise from their graves. There was, indeed, an old
prediction that such an event would happen, but the prediction was
either forgotten or not believed, so that when several Spanish galleys
suddenly made their appearance in Mounts Bay, and landed about two
hundred men near Mousehole, the inhabitants were taken by surprise.
Before they could arm and defend themselves, the Spaniards effected a
landing, began to devastate the country, and set fire to the adjacent
houses.

"It is false," continued the old man sternly, "to say, as has been said
by some, that the men of Mousehole were seized with panic, and that
those of Newlyn and Penzance deserted their houses terror-stricken. The
truth is, that the suddenness of the attack, and their unprepared
condition to repel it, threw the people into temporary confusion, and
forced them to retre