Having executed this little piece of justice on his sworn foe Roscoria, the admiral turned mighty good-humored, and found that he lacked a companion over pipe and bowl. As he had quarreled for life with almost all the residents in Devonshire, it was natural that the choleric but cheery old fellow should turn his eye on Dick Tregurtha--a stranger, a sailor, a pleasant companion, and a man who could oppose a front of imperturbable and respectful good-humor to any high-handed impertinence which the admiral's temper might offer him. This distinction suited Tregurtha uncommonly well. He liked the admiral, and he liked the admiral's niece. He did not see much of Miss Rosetta Villiers, for that damsel was always either attending to the farm or preparing for an examination. But she occasionally looked in upon the men, and had bright smiles for Richard, and a plate of fruit sometimes. She teased the admiral (who was completely under her rule). Sir John evidently liked and understood Rosetta. Lyndis was a complete puzzle to him. He could appreciate a fine woman; but Lyndis was more; she was a fine lady, and far too calm-spirited for the admiral's taste. She was afraid of him and his imperious way, and he knew it, and took a malicious pleasure in avenging himself on her indifference by startling projects of matrimony for her, accompanied by violent reprimands, which Lyndis took with a calm disdain coupled with fear. Now, when he presumed to scold Rosetta, she first would melt into a regular child's fit of tears (which used to cause the admiral to clear his throat and blink his eyes, and retract certain over-fierce expressions); then she would flash into a little Spanish passion, pay the admiral back in some of his own coin, with the genuine stamp upon it, and quickly send him to the right-about. And this the admiral understood too, for he was a man who knocked under with a good grace when fairly worsted. Tregurtha was never weary of hearing the two joke together, and noting occasionally how, when the admiral wickedly strove to turn the joke against Rosetta herself or her sex, the young lady would throw her uncle a glance of her black eyes that shone with such masterful warning that the old commander would cough and change the subject, whilst Rosetta broke into a young, irrepressible laugh of victory. Tregurtha commended himself to the lady by offering his help in the mathematics she required for her examinations. The logic which she also studied was at first beyond his ken, but he got over that difficulty by causing Roscoria to give him a fearful jorum of Jevons every evening, which he then passed on to the pretty student. Rosetta was much impressed; she marveled at the wide and varied talents of a mind that had remembered all the details of logic during a rough seafaring life like Tregurtha's. But if she admired his qualities, how was he affected by hers? Ah! that's the worst of it, always.