and Juliana were not a bit alike. When she
walked, her feet came down pat. I pitied Captain Markley. By leaning
over the carriage I could see him give a start as Mrs. Gunning pounced
at him.

"It's a fine day after the storm, Captain Markley," says she; and he
lifted his cap and said it was.

Then she made a rush that I thought would drive him down the cliff, and
whirled her parasol around his head like sword-play, talking about the
havoc of the storm. She rippled him from head to foot and poked at his
eyes, and jabbed him, to show how lightning struck the rocks, Captain
Markley all the time moving back and dodging; and to save my life I
couldn't help laughing, though the sentinels above him saw it. They were
pretty well used to her, and rolled their quids in their cheeks, and
winked at one another.

When she had all but thrown him down-hill, she stuck the ferrule right
under his nose and shook it, and says she: "Yet it is now as fine a day
as if no such convulsion had ever threatened the island. It is often so
in this world."

He couldn't deny that, miserable as he looked. And I thought she would
let him alone and come and say good-day to me. But no, indeed! She took
him by the arm. Soldiers off duty were lounging on the benches, and
Captain Markley wouldn't let them see him haled like a prisoner. He
marched square-shouldered and erect; and Mrs. Gunning says to me as they
reached the carriage:

"The captain will help you down if you will come with us. I am going to
show him my Shanghai rooster."

I thanked her, and gladly let him help me down. I wasn't going to desert
the poor fellow when Mrs.

Gunning was dealing with him; and, besides, I wanted to see that rooster
myself. We heard such stories of the way she kept her chickens and
labored over all the domestic animals she gathered around herself at the
fort.

[Illustration: The Quarters 182]

By ascending a steep bank on which the western block-house stands, you
know you can look down into the drill-ground--that wide meadow behind
the fort, with quarters at the back. Mrs. Gunning had an enclosure built
outside the wall for her chickens; and there they were, walking about,
scratching the ground, and diverting themselves as well as they could in
their clothes. She had a shed at one end of the enclosure, and all the
hens, walking about or sitting on nests, wore hoods! Holes were made for
their eyes but none for their beaks, and the eyelets seemed to magnify