"Doo any day, Miss, unless she's been nabbed, but the vessel that's going to take the _Aurora_ 'ull want more than wings." "When does the _Minorca_ sail?" "Early next month, I believe, ma'am." Her eyes reposed thoughtfully upon the hull of the ship, mounting presently in a stealing way to the heights, and her colour seemed to deepen slightly to the impulse of a romantic mood or fancy. "If there was nothing to fear from the enemy's ships," she said, "and if the sea was always calm and the breeze gentle and mild, I believe I might wish to make a voyage in the _Minorca_ to the West Indies." "You'd be taken all care of, ma'am." "But the sleeping berths are very little, and I am certain that the motion of the ship----" She shook her head and smiled, and then saying, "Good morning, Mr Eagle. If my aunt has a remedy for the rheumatism I will send it you," she returned the way she had come, mounted the steps, gained the bridge, and proceeded home. Meanwhile, Mr Lawrence had gone about three-quarters of a mile and was now approaching his father's home. The Admiral's cottage was in a lane off the main road. It was such an umbrageous retreat as Cowper, had he been in earnest, would have hastened to when he sighed for some boundless contiguity of shade. It stood in a little land protected by hedges and walls full of orchards. The Admiral lived in the heart of groves of cherry, plum, apple, pear, and other fruitful trees which presently, in this month of April, would make the scene round about as beautiful as driven snow shone upon by the sun, with almond-white flowers. The Admiral missed the sea; he was near it, nay, in heavy weather within sound of it, but not a glimpse of the blue deep could be caught through the windows. He had retired on a pension and on trifling private means which rendered this retreat the fittest he could have chosen for the convenience of his purse and for the simple tastes of his life. Here he lived with an old servant and a young girl, and now with his son; but he was always hoping that this last obligation would not be continuous, though the prospect of getting anything to do in such an obscure corner of the earth as Old Harbour Town was as remote as the possibility of Mr Lawrence ever becoming Prime Minister of England. Yet a secret hope, an indeterminable dream, one of those imaginations which make blessed the possessors of the sanguine temperament, buoyed the Admiral. Who could tell? Something might happen! Walter might fall in with a man who should prove a friend, even in that very haunt, "The Swan," which seemed obnoxious to his interests. Thus the old fellow would reason without logic, or even knowing what he was talking to himself about.