"De-lightful!" answered Sir Peter, kissing the tips of his fingers at an imaginary ideal. "The Walk was shy of ’em at first. So was I. Thought they was foreigners. Foreigners are all very well for you and me, Jack. We ’re men o’ the world. But think of Mrs. Poskett! Think of the Misses Pennymint! Think of Mr. and Mrs. Brooke-Hoskyn!" Lord Otford started slightly at the last name. "Eh? Mr. and Mrs. what?" "Brooke-Hoskyn. Sh!" pointing to the house with his thumb. "Very distinguished man. Moves in the highest circles. Hote tonn, Jack. Dines in town regularly four times a week." "Man of family?" asked Lord Otford. "Family?" roared the Admiral. "Well, I should say so. Four little gels in five years, and more to come! Never met him?" "I seem to remember a man called Hoskyn," said his friend nonchalantly. The Admiral shook his head in dismissal of the undistinguished Hoskyn. "No, no. This is Brooke-Hoskyn; Brooke—h’m—Hoskyn; with a hyphen." Lord Otford had had enough of Brooke-Hoskyn. "Go on about the French widow." "Well, one morning their shay was signalled from the back of the Misses Pennymint. We’d all been watching for their coming, y’ know, because of their house having been painted white—but that’s another yarn altogether. Shays can’t get beyond the corner of Pomander Lane; so I had time to put on my uniform, and my medals, and my cocked hat—" "Meant to show ’em you was Admiral on your own quarter-deck, eh?" "That’s it. And then—" the Admiral glowed with enthusiasm—"well, then Madame came round the corner; and then Mademerzell. They did n’t walk, Jack, they floated. And what did I do? I just sneaked back into harbour, and struck my colours. Yes!— She was the most gracious creature I ’d ever seen. And the gel—! Well, you saw her." He paused for a moment, and then added in a curiously subdued voice: "They brought something new into the Walk." Lord Otford looked at him enquiringly. "What do you mean?" It was some little time before Sir Peter answered. He sat gazing into vacancy a moment, like a man who is remembering happier things, calling up a mental picture of a beautiful landscape—or perhaps of a beautiful face—suddenly smitten by the recollection of his own youth. At last, with something like a sigh he went on. "We’re rather an elderly lot, y’know. Beyond our springtime, Jack, and that’s the truth. When we sit and think, we think of the past, and try not to think of the future. And, suddenly, here was this Grace and Beauty and Youth in the midst of us. It gave the Walk a shock, I can tell ye. All the women lay-to in repairing-dock for days. Mrs. Poskett never showed her nose till she ’d got a new wig from town; Pringle tells me he caught poor little Barbara Pennymint looking at herself in the glass and crying; and Brooke-Hoskyn says his wife, who had watched ’em come from her window, not being able to get downstairs, poor soul, sobbed her heart out and made him swear he loved her."