he only time I
have had my dinner with my knees crook'd, for at least a fortnight, was
at Anerley Farm on Sunday. I am not sure that even they wouldn't turn
against me; I am certain that pretty girl would. I've a great mind to
throw it up--a great mind to throw it up. It is hardly the work for
a gentleman born, and the grandson of a rear-admiral. Tinkers' and
tailors' sons get the luck now; and a man of good blood is put on the
back shelf, behind the blacking-bottles. A man who has battled for his
country--"

"Charles, are you coming to your dinner, once more?"

"No, I am not. There's no dinner worth coming to. You and the children
may eat the rat pie. A man who has battled for his country, and bled
till all his veins were empty, and it took two men to hold him up,
and yet waved his Sword at the head of them--it is the downright
contradiction of the world in everything for him to poke about with pots
and tubs, like a pig in a brewery, grain-hunting."

"Once more, Charles, there is next to nothing left. The children are
eating for their very lives. If you stay out there another minute, you
must take the consequence."

"Alas, that I should have so much stomach, and so little to put into it!
My dear, put a little bit under a basin, if any of them has no appetite.
I wanted just to think a little."

"Charles, they have all got tremendous appetites. It is the way the wind
is. You may think by-and-by, but if you want to eat, you must do it now,
or never."

"'Never' never suits me in that matter," the brave lieutenant answered.
"Matilda, put Geraldine to warm the pewter plate for me. Geraldine
darling, you can do it with your mouth full."

The commander of the coast-guard turned abruptly from his long indignant
stride, and entered the cottage provided for him, and which he had
peopled so speedily.

Small as it was, it looked beautifully clean and neat, and everybody
used to wonder how Mrs. Carroway kept it so. But in spite of all her
troubles and many complaints, she was very proud of this little house,
with its healthful position and beautiful outlook over the bay of
Bridlington. It stood in a niche of the low soft cliff, where now the
sea-parade extends from the northern pier of Bridlington Quay; and when
the roadstead between that and the point was filled with a fleet of
every kind of craft, or, better still, when they all made sail at
once--as happened when a trusty breeze arose--the view was lively, and
very ple