He said very little to Ned during the next two months. On the twenty-fifth of April, the ice had cleared from Toronto Bay, and Bee, in her serge habit and plumed hat, sat very upright on her horse as she rode by Sir John along the muddy water front to the wharves. "They are very slow with those ships," she remarked, with the air of a naval expert. "Major Edgar says there is too much red tape." "Ladies shouldn't talk of war or politics. The feminine mind cannot understand such things," but Sir John smiled on Bee with kindly toleration as he spoke, for he was very fond of the outspoken, affectionate girl. Then his face clouded again. Three ships should have been ready by now, and only one stood complete--the "Gloucester", which was then leisurely taking her guns on board. The second ship was ready for launching, and men were working hard on the third. Sir John had not been able to adapt himself to the new conditions 'round him, as a younger man might. He was mainly responsible for the delay with the ships, for Archy had been recommended to him as a practical ship-builder, and the stately baronet had been so scandalized by Archy's free and easy manners and lack of grammar, that when that young man pointed out a score of makeshifts that could be used on the new ships, and quoted the Americans as having built a vessel of sixty-six guns at Sackett's Harbor, eighty days after her first timbers had been laid, Sir John told him firmly that such things would not do in British ship-building. So snubbed him, that Archy had given no more advice. Work on the ships had been stopped continually, while "proper equipments" were being dragged up the long trail from Quebec. "Old man means well, and I kinder like him," Archy told Edgar, "but he's so stiffened up with pipeclay that he can't move except according to regulations. I'm getting sorrier all the time that General Brock's dead. Them Shawanese at Detroit wouldn't have acted up so if he'd been round, and these ships would have got done." Blake, the pompous captain of the "Gloucester", came to speak to Sir John, and Bee, looking round, saw Susie walking with Ned in his militia uniform, along Palace Street. Susie looked very pretty in her short skirted house dress of homespun, with white collar and a knot of red ribbon, and one of two young officers riding by stared at her with impertinent admiration. The other, who was Vere, pretended not to see Ned, but as they reached Sir John, Roke, his friend, remarked, "Pretty thing over there with the red ribbons." "That lady is the wife of Major Edgar, sir," said Sir John coldly. He disliked Roke, whom he blamed for enticing Vere into the drinking and gambling bouts which were continually unfitting him for duty, and bitterly disappointing his grandfather. "We don't speak of a lady under a colonel's wife," said Roke to Vere as they rode on. "A captain's wife may be a woman, but under that they are only things; and militia titles don't count."