Mr. Chalk spent the time in preparations for the voyage, purchasing, among other necessaries, a stock of firearms of all shapes and sizes, with which he practised in the garden.  Most marksmen diminish gradually the size of their target; but Mr. Chalk, after starting with a medicine-bottle at a hundred yards, wound up with the greenhouse at fifteen.  Mrs. Chalk, who was inside at the time tending an invalid geranium, acted as marker, and, although Mr. Chalk proved by actual measurement that the bullet had not gone within six inches of her, the range was closed.

[Illustration:  “Purchasing firearms, with which he practised in the garden.”]

By the time the alterations on the Fair Emily were finished the summer was nearly at an end, and it was not until the 20th of August that the travellers met on Binchester platform.  Mrs. Chalk, in a smart yachting costume, with a white-peaked cap, stood by a pile of luggage discoursing to an admiring circle of friends who had come to see her off.  She had shut up her house and paid off her servants, and her pity for Mrs. Stobell, whose husband had forbidden such a course in her case, provided a suitable and agreeable subject for conversation.  Mrs. Stobell had economised in quite a different direction, and Mrs. Chalk gazed in indignant pity at the one small box and the Gladstone bag which contained her wardrobe.

[Illustration:  “Mrs. Chalk stood by a pile of luggage, discoursing to an admiring circle of friends.”]

“She don’t want to dress up on shipboard,” said Mr. Stobell.

Mrs. Chalk turned and eyed her friend’s costume—­a plain tweed coat and skirt, in which she had first appeared the spring before last.

“If we’re away a year,” she said, decidedly,” she’ll be in rags before we get back.”

Mr. Stobell said that fortunately they would be in a warm climate, and turned to greet the Tredgolds, who had just arrived.  Then the train came in, and Mr. Chalk, appearing suddenly from behind the luggage, where he had been standing since he had first caught sight of the small, anxious face of Selina Vickers on the platform, entered the carriage and waved cheery adieus to Binchester.

To the eyes of Mr. Chalk and his wife Biddlecombe appeared to have put on holiday attire for the occasion.  With smiling satisfaction they led the way to the ferry, Mrs. Chalk’s costume exciting so much attention that the remainder of the party hung behind to watch Edward Tredgold fasten his bootlace.  It took two boats to convey the luggage to the schooner, and the cargo of the smaller craft shifting in mid-stream, the boatman pulled the remainder of the way with a large portion of it in his lap.  Unfortunately, his mouth was free.

Mr. Chalk could not restrain a cry of admiration as he clambered on board the Fair Emily.  The deck was as white as that of a man-of-war, and her brass-work twinkled in the sun.  White paint work and the honest and healthy smell of tar completed his satisfaction.  His chest expanded as he sniffed the breeze, and with a slight nautical roll paced up and down the spotless deck.