"My dear, he used to weave for me before you were born." "Well; old Short tells nurse that there is not a loom at work in all Crispin-street, nor has been all this month, while silk pelisses are more the fashion than ever they were. The Bremes had such beautiful pelisses last Sunday at church! You saw them, papa?" "Not I, my dear. I do not go to church to look at people's pelisses." "O, well! they are made Paris fashion; and of French silk too. Your silks are not good enough for such high and mighty young ladies, nurse says." "There will soon be an end of that," observed Charlotte, who attributed her father's gravity to the fact of his manufacture being slighted. "There will soon be an end of all that; and nurse's son is going to help to put an end to it." "Yes, papa," cried Lucy. "Only think! He is going into the Pretence Service." "La, Lucy! you mean the Preventive Service," cried Charlotte. "To _prevent_ prohibited goods being brought on shore; to _prevent_ smugglers' boats from landing. Now you will understand, Lucy, what the Preventive Service means. So Nicholas is to be one of the Coast Guard! I suppose nurse is pleased." "I hardly know," replied Charlotte. "He says it is very hard service in these times; and I believe she thinks her son fit to be an admiral. He has to guard the Sussex coast; and nurse says there are more smugglers there than any where." Lucy was of opinion that he should have somebody to help him. He could hardly manage, she thought, to prevent boats landing, if several chose to come together. He must be a very brave man indeed, she thought, to judge by what had been given him to do. No wonder nurse was proud of him! Nicholas sank much in her estimation when she heard that he was not alone to guard the whole Sussex coast, but had companions within sight by day, and within hail by night. "But do they all earn wages, like Nicholas?" inquired Lucy. "They pay him wages, besides letting him have his pension still, that was given him for being wounded in a battle. I wish old Short, and some of the other poor people he was telling nurse about, could be made guards too. But who pays them?" "Who do you think pays them? Try and find out." Charlotte thought that her father and the other manufacturers were the most likely people to pay for the prevention of smuggling, especially as some shopkeepers and the public had no objection to smuggling. But when she remembered how many guards there must be, if they were in sight of one another all along the coast where smuggling went on, she began to think that it must be an expense which would be hardly worth the manufacturers' while. Lucy supposed that if each manufacturer kept one, it might be easily managed. She asked which would cost most,--a Preventive servant or a footboy?