ky blushed with pleasure.

"Men," she went on, "can go the straight way to get what they wish.
The way is usually hard--it ought to be hard if the man is worth
anything--but it is always quite straight and simple, else it is wrong.
Now women have to win through men; which means that they must go round
about."

"But old Hichens?"

To herself she might have answered, "He only is allowed to me here.
On whom else can I practise to please? But, alas! I practise for a
master who never comes!" Aloud she said, "You are excited to-day,
Dicky. You have something to tell me."

"I should think I had!"

"What is it?"

"It's about Uncle Harry. Dad showed me a letter from him to-day, and
he's fought a splendid action down off Grand Bahama. Oh, you must hear!
It seems he'd been beating about in his frigate for close on three
months--on and off the islands on the look-out for those Spanish fellows
that snap up our fruit-ships. Well, the water on board was beginning to
smell; so he ran in through the nor'-west entrance of Providence
Channel, anchored just inside, and sent his casks ashore to be refilled.
They'd taken in the fresh stock, and the _Venus_ was weighing for sea
again almost before the last boatload came alongside.--Can't you see
her, the beauty! One anchor lifted, t'other chain shortened in, tops'ls
and t'gallants'ls cast off, ready to cant her at the right moment--"

"Is that how they do it?"

"Of course it is. Well just then Uncle Harry spied a boat beating in
through the entrance. He had passed her outside two days before--one of
those small open craft that dodge about groping for sponges--splendid
naked fellows, the crews are. She had put about and run back in search
of him, and her news was of a Spanish guarda-costa making down towards
Havana with three prizes. Think of it! Uncle Harry was off and after
them like a greyhound, and at sunrise next morning he sighted them in a
bunch. He had the wind of them and the legs of them; there isn't a
speedier frigate afloat than the _Venus_--although, he says, she was
getting foul with weed: and after being chased for a couple of hours the
Spaniard and two of the prizes hauled up and showed fight. Now for it!
. . . He ran past the guarda-costa, drawing her fire, but no great harm
done; shot up under the sterns of the two prizes, that were lying not
two hundred yards apart; and raked 'em with half-a-broadside apiece--no
time, you see, to reload between. It