“No, Miss Lucy, you are not afraid of me; but I sometimes fear—­” and he hesitated.

“It must blow very hard that day,” said Lucy, with a world of politeness.  Her tongue was too quick for him.  He found it so, and announced the fact after his fashion.  “I can’t tack fast enough to follow you,” said he despondently.

“But you are not required to follow me,” replied this amiable eel, with hypocritical benignity; “I am going to my aunt’s room to do what I told you.  I leave you in charge of the quarter-deck.”  So saying, she walked slowly up the steps, and left David standing sorrowfully on the gravel.  At the top step Miss Lucy turned and inquired gently when he was to sail.  He told her the ship was expected to anchor off the fort to-morrow, but she would not sail till she had got all her passengers on board.

“Oh!” said Lucy, with an air of reflection.  She then leaned in an easy posture against the wall, and, whether it was that she relented a little, or that, having secured her retreat, she was now indifferent to flight, certain it is that she did after her own fashion what many a daughter of Eve has done before her, and many a duchess and many a dairymaid will do after La Fountain and I are gone from earth.  A minute ago it had been, “She must go directly.”  The more opposition to her departure, the more inexorable the necessity for her going; opposition withdrawn, and the door open, she stayed no end.

Full twenty minutes did that young lady stand there unsolicited, and chat with David Dodd in the kindest, sweetest, most amicable way imaginable.

She little knew she had an auditor—­a female auditor, keen as a lynx.

All this day Reginald George Bazalgette, Esq., might have been defined “a pest in search of a playmate.”  Tom had got a holiday.  Lucy only came out of her workshop to be seized by Mr. Fountain.  David, who was waiting in the garden for Lucy, begged Reginald to excuse him for once.  The young gentleman had recourse as a pis aller to his mamma.  He invaded her bedroom, and besought her piteously to play at battledoor.  That lady, sighing deeply at being taken from her dress, consented.  Her soul not being in it, she played very badly.  Her cub did not fail to tell her so.  “Why, I can keep up a hundred with Mr. Dodd,” said he.

“Oh, we all know Mr. Dodd is perfection,” said the lady with a sneer.  She was piqued with David.  He had gone and left her in a brutal way, to make his apologies to Lucy.

“No, he is not,” said Reginald.  “I have found him out.  He is as unjust as the rest of them.”

“Dear me! and, pray, what has he done?”

“I will tell you, mamma, if you will promise not to tell papa, because he told me not to listen, and I didn’t listen, mamma, because, you know, a gentleman always keeps his word; but they talked so loud the words would come into my ear; I could not keep them out.  Mamma, are there any naughty ladies here?”