“I went out for my smoke and stroll rather earlier than I had intended. I saw the Cornish girl and three uncouth children in rusty leather boots wending their way across the piece of waste ground which forms the delicious prospect before my window. A nice, cool, gray afternoon, with a low yellow streak on the western horizon; a gray sea, melting into a gray sky, with only just that one golden streak glimmering along the edge of the waters; the sort of afternoon that reminds one of Tennyson’s poetry. So I lighted my cigar, and went out for a stroll. Perhaps I followed the monosyllabic girl. What do I know? as that amiable French nuisance, who is perpetually quoted in newspaper leaders, remarked. Enough that I went, found the Cornish girl, very shabbily dressed, but unutterably pretty, strolling listlessly up and down the paved walk beside the sea. They _call_ it the sea; but, Oh for the roaring breakers of the Atlantic, or the long hoarse roar of the waves as the German Ocean surges on broad yellow sands yonder, far away in the North! “And so, having lighted my cigar, I strolled up and down the Esplanade. Of course I began to talk to the children. If children have any use in this world--which I have been frequently inclined to doubt--surely it must be in this matter of serving as a means of introduction to pretty nursemaids. The children and I were intimate in no time; the presuming little imps became, of course, obnoxiously familiar; and, like all go-betweens, were very difficult to shake off when done with. But I got the Cornish girl to talk at last. She is not stupid, only shy; and she told me a good deal, in a pretty, simple, girlish way, about her native county, always keeping clear of all precise allusion to locality, by the bye. She is very pretty,--I had almost written lovely, but that adjective can only be applied to a high-bred beauty. She is extremely pretty, and that white doe of Rhylston (isn’t it?) look in her eyes haunted me all last night while I was reading. Yes, it was very pleasant, that stroll upon the Esplanade. I threw away my first cigar, and forgot to light another, though she would have allowed me to smoke, I dare say. It was very pleasant, that cool gray sea, and the yellow streak fading in the west, and the flat gray shore, and the generally Tennysonian aspect of everything. It was very much better than the King’s Arms, and a lot of fellows drinking no end of Bass, and chaffing Rosa. I don’t suppose this Cornish girl knows what chaff means. I almost shudder when I think of Rosa, with her big, round, black eyes, and the sticky little curls upon her forehead, and the tartan neck-ribbons, and great yellow earrings. And Oxonians have married Rosas before my time, and have deservedly gone to the dogs thereupon. But fifty thousand is your figure, my dear Robert,--fifty thousand, well sounded, and no separate-use-and-maintenance humbug either. Something in the