Meanwhile Tregurtha and his partner of the white face and dark eyes were eating strawberries in an adjacent hayfield. It was pleasant there also, and the damsel, for all her grave looks, was playful, and conversation was uninterrupted. "Tell me a sea story," she asked, after a little desultory persiflage had been exchanged; and Tregurtha settled himself on a large haycock and began to recount his own adventures in various storms and casualties on the ocean, just as he told them to Roscoria's boys at night. And as he did so, his blue eyes kindling, and his hands closing and unclosing with the excitement of memory and the thought of the wild sea wind, he caught full sight of the blue-black eyes of his hearer, who had come nearer and was watching and listening to him with parted lips. She reminded him of a woman he had known years ago in Spain, who died; and those eyes struck a sharp pain to his heart, so that he finished his story with his hand over his brow to keep them from him. So, as he did not look again at her, Rosetta quietly finished all the strawberries, for she was, as yet, very young. A loud, impatient halloo aroused them both, as a stout, warlike, flurried, elderly gentleman came puffing indignantly through the tumbled hay (most like a threshing machine), much encumbered by a large feminine shawl, which he carried on his arm, and shouting to Rosetta: "Why, why, dash it, my love, I call this insubordination, you know. Didn't I tell you an hour you should have and no more? And how long do you suppose you've kept the horses waiting? I can tell you, madam, you're the only human being who dare keep Admiral Sir John Villiers' carriage and himself waiting in this way. How d'ye do, sir? I'm glad to make your acquaintance. Sailor, I see. Of course! didn't I know what the tattooing on your wrist meant? Got an anchor on mine, sir. Confound your impudence, miss, what are you laughing at? Oh! the shawl--stuck to my coat-button, has it? Well, and if it has; have you no reverence, you saucy minx? Put it round your neck, treasure. I hate a woman who catches cold!" Thus was Rosetta swept off from the glances of her first admirer by Admiral Sir John Villiers, the owner of Braceton Park, renowned as the most awkward customer in Devonshire. V. THE GODDESS IS HUMAN. The friends found their way home together in the cool of the evening; both very quiet, but Roscoria evidently meditating some deep design. At night, growing confidential as they patrolled the garden, smoking, Louis proceeded to rave of his goddess "for an hour by his dial." Tregurtha heard and nodded in silence. He was a more reserved man than his friend, so he did not even mention the maid who ate his share of the strawberries. Indeed, he forgot her whilst listening to the outpourings of his ingenuous comrade. "I shall never be any good at my work, I'm afraid," complained Roscoria; "that beautiful face is the only thing my mind will comprehend."