“I’ll go to-day, Molly,” he said, “and you shall come with me if you like. We’ll have one jolly day together before I go to the training-ship. The tide runs eastward up till twelve, and will bring us back easily in the afternoon. Come down to the beach in half an hour: I’ll have the boat ready, and some bread and cheese. You ask your mother for some cold tea.” And Harold, delighted with his plan, and with his mind as cloudless as a sunny summer’s day, ran off to get his boat ready, hardly finding time to give Molly the kiss that her uplifted grateful face demanded of him. In half an hour she and the boat were both ready, and they passed out of the little bay, she steering and he rowing, as the mist began to lift from the curving outlines of the downs. It was very restful to Molly to glide over that silky sea, with the gulls quietly sailing above, the breeze from the land just breathing on her, and Harold’s bright face opposite to her; and for a while she was perfectly happy, thinking of nothing. But suddenly the sound of a big gun reached them, and looking out to sea they saw the distant masts of a huge ironclad, and a white curl of smoke, which had already risen high in air by the time the sound reached them. As they looked, another white puff, and, as it slowly rose, another faint boom. Harold’s eyes sparkled, and he rested on his oars, and turned to watch the ship. “I expect it’s the _Monarch_,” he said. “I know she’s cruising about here. Just think, Molly! Some day perhaps you’ll hear the big guns and I shall be on board. And thinking of you,” he added, as his face came round to look at Molly with a look half of pity, half of pride. But there was a big tear slowly slipping down Molly’s brown cheek. The thought of Harold’s going had come over her like a cloud, and the rain was beginning to fall. For a moment he felt angry; plunged the oars into the water, and rowed on strongly with just a faint flush on his cheek. Then seeing her face turned away, so that he should not see the tear, and the little mouth compressed and chin held firm so as to keep another from escaping, he shipped his oars, jumped across to her, and with boyish energy gave her a host of rough kisses on each cheek. Then he took her face between his hands and said-- “Molly, don’t you be silly. If you’re going to cry every time you hear a big gun fired I’ll sail right away to the other side of the world and marry some one over there. But if you’ll be a good girl I’ll come back some day and be a coastguard, and then we can live in one of those cottages by the flagstaff, and you shall polish the windows and the floors till they shine like mother’s china. And when I get to Portsmouth I’ll have a likeness taken in uniform, and you shall have it to hang up in your own room. Now then, let go, silly, or we shall be on the rocks!”