‘Oh, how heavenly! Only think of a ship being made to tell her name! Oh mamma,’ she cried, making a step to catch hold of her mother’s gown, and to give it a tweak, as the old lady stood at the rail gazing at the American vessel from the ambush of a large bonnet, shaped like a coal-scuttle; ‘imagine, dear: Mr. Dugdale says that the _Countess Ida_ is telling that ship who she is. How clever men are--particularly sailors. I love sailors.’ Her melting eyes sought the deck, and the long lashes drooped in a tender shadow of beauty upon the faint golden tinge of her cheeks. ‘La, now, to think of it!’ cried Mrs. Hudson. ‘Well, those who go down into the sea, as the saying is, do certainly see some wonderful things.’ Here Mr. Colledge, who did not know, I suppose, that I was conversing with these ladies, came up to me and said: ‘By the way, Dugdale, what was that joke of yours about the lion’s skin this morning? Miss Temple says it was meant for a joke; but hang me if I can see any point in it.’ ‘What did I say?’ I asked. He repeated the remark. ‘Oh, yes; the young lady is right,’ said I, sending a look at her as she stood near the wheel by her aunt’s side--the pair of them well away from the rest of us--gazing through a pair of delicate little opera glasses at the Yankee; ‘it was a joke. What a capital memory you have. But as to point, it had none, and the joke, my dear fellow, lies in that.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘it makes a man feel like an ass to miss a good thing when a lady is standing by who can see it clearly enough to laugh at it afterwards.’ ‘Yes,’ I exclaimed; ‘very true indeed. What a fine picture that ship makes, eh? There goes her answering pennant! Let them say what they will of Jonathan, he has a trick high above the art of John Bull in shipbuilding.’ I watched his handsome face as he peered at her. He turned to me and said: ‘D’ye know, there’s a doocid lot of humour in the idea of the point of a joke lying in its having no point;’ and with that he went over to Miss Temple, whose haughty face softened into a smile to his approach; and there for some time the three of them stood, he ogling the American (that was slowly slipping into toy-like dimensions upon our quarter) through the girl’s binocular; whilst she talked with him, as I could tell by the movement of her lips, Mrs. Radcliffe meanwhile looking on with fidgety motions of her head, and frequent glances at her niece, the nervous interrogative slightly troubled character of which was as suggestive to me as to how it stood between them, as if she had come to my side and whipped out that she was really afraid that Louise’s character would make the charge of her a worry and a perplexity.