where there are all sorts of visitors, than in the country where everybody knows all about their pedigree and belongings. Dolly’s only real help was Miss Matilda Trevor, the second daughter of the admiral, a plain, good woman, but so shortsighted that she had to put her nose into everything before she could see it. Some of the smaller lights of Markham, Mrs. Booth, and her niece, from Rosebank, and young Mrs. Rossiter, the doctor’s wife, might have been of a little use; but their heads were turned by the offer the rector inadvertently made of the chairs reserved for the Markhams on the lawn. When they had such a chance of distinction, of making their “position” quite apparent, and showing their equality with the county people, who could wonder that these ladies threw over the children, and Dolly, though not without many compunctions? Poor ladies! they did not make very much of it; they talked to each other which they could do any day, and now and then got a word from Miss Trevor, who poked out her trumpet for the answer, frightening Mrs. Rossiter out of her wits. This, however, accomplished Dolly’s discomfiture, leaving her altogether to herself. It was a pretty scene, as everybody said. The people who were walking about the garden dropped off as the afternoon went on, but the great people sat it out; though they paused to say it was a pretty scene, they were busy with their own talk, and had nothing else to do that was of any importance. The admiral had got into an argument with Lord Westland about the new ironclads--if argument that could be called which consisted of vituperation on the part of the old sailor and amiable remonstrances from the new lord. “Ships,” the bigoted old seaman cried, the foam flying from his lips, “I doncall’em ships.” He ran his words into each other, which made him very difficult to understand. “Shtinking old tin-kettles, old potshanpans, that’s what I call ’em. Set a seaman afloatin’em shlike puttin’emdownamine. I don’ callit afloat.” “My dear sir,” said Lord Westland, blandly, “there may be something in what you say; but we might as well try to confine the waves of the sea, as a certain king did, as to keep back science. Science, admiral, must have her way.” “Let’erhav’erway,” cried the old man, “down to the bottom if sheshamind. One good seamansh worth more ’ana shipload o’ph’losophers. Let’emman’erownships; let’em man their own ships. Crew o’ph’losophers ’shtead o’seamen. Bust their boilers’s often ’shtheylike and devil a harm.” “He says the new ships should have crews of philosophers,” said Miss Trevor, tranquilly, putting up her hand to silence the anxious “I did not catch your last remark,” to which Lord Westland was about to give utterance. The peer shook his indulgent head. “My dear admiral, philosophers, though it may please you and me, who are old-fashioned, to rail at them, are rapidly becoming the masters of the world.”