"True--I forgot. Well, let us take Mostyn's drag to Southampton to-morrow--it is Sunday, no drill going--cross to the Isle of Wight, dine at the hotel, and with our field-glasses--the binoculars--see the girls bathing at Freshwater." "I don't approve of gentlemen overlooking ladies bathing." "What the deuce do you approve of?" "Being let alone, Price; as the girls say to you, I suspect." "Not always--not always, old fellow," replied Hugh, with a very self-satisfied smile, as he caressed and curled his fair moustache. "Nor the married ones either," added Mostyn, a tall showy officer in a braided green patrol jacket; "for when you were in North Wales, Hardinge, our friend Price got into a precious mess with a selfish old sposo, who thought he should keep his pretty wife all to himself, or at least from flirting with a redcoat." "Perhaps he was less irritated by the rifle green." "Come with me into the city," urged Clavell; "the Dean's lady gives a kettledrum before mess, and I can take a friend." "Parish scandal, cathedral-town gossip, coffee, ices, and Italian confectionery. Thanks, Tom, no." "I have met some very pretty girls there," retorted Clavell, "and it is great fun to lean over their chairs and see them look up at one over their fans shyly, half-laughing at, and half-approving of, the balderdash poured into their ears." "A sensible way of winning favour and spending time." "I vote for the Isle of Wight," continued Clavell; "I saw la belle Cressingham taking a header there the other day in splendid style. Only fancy that high-born creature taking a regular header!" "_Who_ did you say?" said I, turning so suddenly that little Tom was startled, and let the glass drop from his eye. "Lady Estelle Cressingham; you remember her of course. She had on a most becoming bathing-costume; I could make that out with my glass from the cliffs." "Clavell, she is in London," said I, coldly; "and moreover is unlikely to indulge in headers, as she can't swim." "I know better, excuse me," said Mostyn, who, I knew, had dined but lately at Walcot Park; "she told me that she had been recently bathing, and had studied at the Ecole de Natation on the Quai d'Orsay in Paris." "It is more than she ever told me," thought I, as my mind reverted to our terrible adventure. I became silent and perplexed, and covertly looked with rather sad envy on the handsome and unthinking Mostyn, who had enjoyed the pleasure of seeing and talking to Estelle since I had done so. "It is difficult," says David Hume, "for a man to speak long of himself without vanity; therefore I will be _short;_" and having much to narrate, I feel compelled to follow the example of the Scottish historian, for events now came thick and fast.