We were all, especially the ladies, pretty well tired; so, after a comfortable dinner, we betook ourselves to rest betimes. Next morning, at seven o'clock, we again mustered in force in the breakfast room, and the instant I entered, little Dicky, to my surprise, bolted from Helen Hudson's side, dashing away her hand from him angrily, and ran to me--"Massa Brail, Miss Hudson tell lie." "Dicky, mind what you say." "Oh, yes; but yesterday she say--Dicky Phantom, you put on petticoat and frock--to-morrow you put on trowsers again." "Oh, Dicky, Dicky," cried Helen, laughing. "Well, my dear boy, Miss Hudson must be as good as her word, and restore your trowsers: she does not mean to _wear_ them, does she?" "Indeed, Dicky, Helen did quite right to dress you as you are," said Mrs Hudson, perceiving her daughter a little put out; "your little trowsers were all tar and pitch, and you are too young to leave off frocks yet." The child, although there was no help at hand, determined to show he would not be imposed on, so, like a little snake casting his skin, he deliberately shook himself, and with a wriggle of his shoulders slid out of his clothes altogether; and there he stood like a little naked Cupidon--"Now I shall go and catch fis," said the little fellow laughing. With that he toddled away into the basin of water, that was gurgling and splashing in the court-yard. I wish there had been a painter to have caught the group. Sophie Duquesné and Helen Hudson running about the small walks of the rocky parterre, dashing the water spangles from the flowers with their light feet, and laughing loudly as they strove to catch Dicky, who kept just beyond their reach, squealing with child-like joy, and splashing them: a perfect shower of spray descending all the time on the beautiful urchin's own curly pate; while the plantain leaves were shaking in the breeze, and checkering the blue sky overhead. At length De Walden caught him, and swung him out of the water by the arms into Helen Hudson's lap. When breakfast was over, we again mounted our mules, to explore the neighbourhood towards the coast; for notwithstanding the tortuosity of the road we had come, we were not, Mr Hudson said, above three miles distant from the sea after all. Listado, honest gentleman, chose to mount the smallest mule that could be had; and as he was upwards of six feet high, he looked, as he paced along, more like an automaton mounted on a velocipede than any thing else.