The captain pooh-poohed this remark, however, saying that an old friend of his, who had retired from the Royal Navy and was now living at that lively watering-place, knew of a little furnished house which could be obtained reasonably if taken for the following week, as well as for the principal one. And he clinched the remark by saying, 'And I have told him to secure it.' There was therefore nothing further to be said on that score, Bella alone remarking that she had the best old uncle and aunt that ever lived.
'There will be,' he continued, putting a slice of the breast upon her plate, probably as a reward for her observation, 'plenty to amuse Bella. There is a garden-party at Whale Island; another given by the General; and a ball given by the Navy at the Town Hall. That's the place for you, Bella. If you don't find a husband there--and you a sailor's daughter, too--well!----'
But these remarks were hushed by his wife, who told him not to tease the child, and by the beautiful rose blush which promptly rushed to his niece's cheeks. Yet, all the same, Bella thought it very likely that she would have a good time of it.
They were playing Madame Sans-Gêne at the Lyceum that evening--though Pooley rather wished it had been something by Shakespeare--and on the road to the theatre in the cab he told them that he had taken another stall, to which he had invited a young friend of his whom he had run against in town a day or two ago.
'And a very good fellow, too,' he said, 'besides being a first-rate sailor. And he has had a pretty hard struggle of it, owing to his being cursed with a cross-grained old father, who seemed to imagine his son was only brought into the world that he might sit upon him in every way. All the same, though, Stephen Charke got to windward of him somehow.'
'Whoever is he, uncle?' Bella asked, interested in this story of the unknown person who was to make a fifth of their party; while her mother addressed a similar question to Mrs. Pooley.
'He is,' said the captain, 'a young man of about thirty, who once went to sea with me in the Sophy; the son of an old retired officer, who was years ago in a West Indian regiment. After petting and spoiling the boy, and--as Stephen Charke himself told me--almost treating him with deference because he happened to have been born his son, he afterwards endeavoured to exert a good deal of authority over him, which led to disagreeables. He wanted the lad to go in for the Army, and Stephen wanted to go to sea.'
'And got his way, apparently,' said Bella.
'He did,' her uncle replied, 'by absolutely running away to sea--just like a hero in a boy's book.'
'How lovely!' the girl exclaimed.