“I’d love,” aspired the romantic boy, “to go up—­an’ up—­an’ up, just like that, an’ then bust—­bust in red and yellow blazes.”

“You will, one o’ these days; that is, if you behave yourself.  We have that assurance within us.”

“I wouldn’ mind the dyin’ out,” ingeminated Palmerston, “so’s I could have one jolly good bust.”

“In the land of marrow an’ fatness we shall be doing of it permanent,” Mrs Bowldler assured him for his comfort.  “That’s to say if we ever get there.  But you just wait till they let off the set pieces.  There’s one of Queen Victoria, you can see the very eyelids.  Sixty years Queen of England, come next June:  with God Bless Her underneath in squibs like Belshazzar’s Feast.  And He will, too, from what I know of ’im.”

As it turned out, at the distance from which our company viewed them, these set pieces laid some tax on the imagination.  They were duly applauded to be sure; and when Mrs Bosenna exclaimed “How lovely!” and ’Bias allowed “Not so bad,” their tribute scarcely differed, albeit paid in different coin.  The rockets, however, won the highest commendation, and a blaze of coloured fires on the surrounding hills ran the rockets a close second.

Towards the close of the display a few drops of rain began to fall from the overcharged clouds:  large premonitory drops, protesting against this disturbance of the upper air.

“That’s the fine-alley!” announced ’Bias, as another detonator banged aloft, while a volcano of “fiery serpents” hissed and screamed behind it.  “Let’s run for shelter!”

He offered his arm.  Cai did the same.  But Mrs Bosenna—­she had not clung to any one this time—­very nimbly slipped between them and took Dinah for protector.  She was in the gayest of moods, as they all scrambled up the wet steps to the roadway, and so down other flights of wet steps under the pattering rain to the shelter of ’Bias’s summer-house.

“Just in time!” she panted, shaking the drops from her cloak.  “And I can’t remember whenever I’ve enjoyed myself so much.  But—­” as she looked about her and over the table—­“what a feast!”

It was a noble feast.  If Cai had been busy all day, no less had ’Bias been busy.  There were lobsters; there were chickens, with a boiled ham; there was a cold sirloin of beef, for grosser tastes; there were jellies, tartlets, a trifle, a cherry pie.  There was beer in a nine-gallon jar, and cider in another.  There were bottles of fizzy lemonade, with a dash of which Mrs Bosenna insisted on diluting her cider.  Her mirth was infectious as they feasted, while the rain, now descending in a torrent, drummed on the summer-house roof.

“How on earth we’re ever to get home, Dinah, I’m sure I don’t know!  And what’s more, I don’t seem to care, just yet.”

Captain Cai and Captain ’Bias protested in unison that, when the time came, they would escort her home against all perils.