ven a dislike, at such times, to the company of Wickam, and was
well pleased when she strolled away, as she generally did, to pick up
shells and acquaintances. His favourite spot was quite a lonely one, far
away from most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his side at work,
or reading to him, or talking to him, and the wind blowing on his face,
and the water coming up among the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing
more.

'Floy,' he said one day, 'where's India, where that boy's friends live?'

'Oh, it's a long, long distance off,' said Florence, raising her eyes
from her work.

'Weeks off?' asked Paul.

'Yes dear. Many weeks' journey, night and day.'

'If you were in India, Floy,' said Paul, after being silent for a
minute, 'I should--what is it that Mama did? I forget.'

'Loved me!' answered Florence.

'No, no. Don't I love you now, Floy? What is it?--Died. in you were in
India, I should die, Floy.'

She hurriedly put her work aside, and laid her head down on his pillow,
caressing him. And so would she, she said, if he were there. He would be
better soon.

'Oh! I am a great deal better now!' he answered. 'I don't mean that. I
mean that I should die of being so sorry and so lonely, Floy!'

Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep, and slept quietly for a
long time. Awaking suddenly, he listened, started up, and sat listening.

Florence asked him what he thought he heard.

'I want to know what it says,' he answered, looking steadily in her
face. 'The sea' Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?'

She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves.

'Yes, yes,' he said. 'But I know that they are always saying something.
Always the same thing. What place is over there?' He rose up, looking
eagerly at the horizon.

She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said he
didn't mean that: he meant further away--farther away!

Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break off,
to try to understand what it was that the waves were always saying; and
would rise up in his couch to look towards that invisible region, far
away.

CHAPTER 9. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble

That spice of romance and love of the marvellous, of which there was a
pretty strong infusion in the nature of young Walter Gay, and which the
guardianship of his Uncle, old Solomon Gills, had not very much weakened
by the waters of stern practical experience, was