garden reading books, and finding fault here and there, and sniffing
at the flowers, a quarter so often as pretty Dolly does, perhaps you
wouldn't make such a perfect angel of her, and run down her sister in
comparison. But your wonderful Miss Faith comes peeping here and poking
there into pots and pans, and asking the maids how their mothers are, as
if her father kept no housekeeper. She provoked me so in the simple-room
last week, as if I was hiding thieves there, that I asked her at last
whether she expected to find Mr. Erle there. And you should have seen
how she burst out crying; for something had turned on her mind before."

"Well, I couldn't have said that to her," quoth the tender-hearted
Swipes--"not if she had come and routed out every key and every box,
pot, pan, and pannier in the tool-house and stoke-hole and vinery! The
pretty dear! the pretty dear! And such a lady as she is! Ah, you women
are hard-hearted to one another, when your minds are up! But take my
word for it, Mrs. Cloam, no one will ever have the chance of making your
beautiful Miss Dolly cry by asking her where her sweetheart is."

CHAPTER VII

A SQUADRON IN THE DOWNS

"My dear girls, all your courage is gone," said Admiral Darling to his
daughters at luncheon, that same Monday; "departed perhaps with Lord
Nelson and Frank. I hate the new style of such come-and-go visits, as
if there was no time for anything. Directly a man knows the ways of the
house, and you can take him easily, off he goes. Just like Hurry, he
never can stop quiet. He talks as if peace was the joy of his life, and
a quiet farm his paradise, and very likely he believes it. But my belief
is that a year of peace would kill him, now that he has made himself so
famous. When that sort of thing begins, it seems as if it must go on."

"But, father dear," exclaimed the elder daughter, "you could have done
every single thing that Lord Nelson has ever contrived to do, if you
had only happened to be there, and equally eager for destruction. I
have heard you say many times, though not of course before him, that you
could have managed the battle of the Nile considerably better than he
did. And instead of allowing the great vessel to blow up, you would have
brought her safe to Spithead."

"My dear, you must have quite misunderstood me. Be sure that you never
express such opinions, which are entirely your own, in the presence
of naval officers. Though I will not say that they a