"No, no! you must stay and have your portrait taken; you'll make a fine
picture."

"Hum; might ha', they used to say, thirty years agone; I'm over old now.
Still, my old woman might like it. Make so bold, sir, but what's your
charge?"

"I charge nothing. Five minutes' talk with an honest man will pay me."

"Hum: if you'd a let me pay you, sir, well and good; but I maunt take up
your time for nought; that's not fair."

However, Claude prevailed, and in ten minutes he had all the sailors on
the quay round him; and one after another came forward blushing and
grinning to be "taken off." Soon the children gathered round, and when
Valencia and Major Campbell came on the pier, they found Claude in the
midst of a ring of little dark-haired angels; while a dozen honest
fellows grinned when their own visages appeared, and chaffed each other
about the sweethearts who were to keep them while they were out at sea.
And in the midst little Claude laughed and joked, and told good stories,
and gave himself up, the simple, the sunny-hearted fellow, to the
pleasure of pleasing, till he earned from one and all the character of
"the pleasantest-spokenest gentleman that was ever into the town."

"Here's her ladyship! make room for her ladyship!" But Claude held up a
warning hand. He had just arranged a masterpiece,--half-a-dozen of the
prettiest children, sitting beneath a broken boat, on spars, sails,
blocks, lobster-pots, and what not, arranged in picturesque confusion;
while the black-bearded sea-kings round were promising them rock and
bulls-eyes, if they would only sit still like "gude maids."

But at Valencia's coming the children all looked round, and jumped up
and curtsied, and then were afraid to sit down again.

"You have spoilt my group, Miss St. Just, and you must mend it!"

Valencia caught the humour, regrouped them all forthwith; and then
placed herself in front of them by Claude's side.

"Now, be good children! Look straight at me, and listen!" And lifting up
her finger, she began to sing the first song of which she could think,
"The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers."

She had no need to bid the children look at her and listen; for not only
they, but every face upon the pier was fixed upon her; breathless,
spell-bound, at once by her magnificent beauty and her magnificent
voice, as up rose, leaping into the clear summer air, and rolling away
over the still blue sea, that glorious melody which has now become the
nation