"Good luck to you and your ship, captain!" said Roscoria, with that air of ill-sustained buoyancy which we all adopt during the mauvais quart d'heure of parting.
"Good-bye, Corydon," said Dick, and wrung his friend's hand. "Be off, or you'll miss the coach."
Lyndis and Roscoria walked away together up the steep path to the high road; Rodda had made himself scarce, and Tregurtha stood alone.
There is an advantage here and there, when your friend marries and you don't. He keeps a more luxurious table as a rule, and you are sure of a match-box and hot-water in your bedroom when you visit him. On the other hand, there is something eternally gone; the old frank confidence a deux grows yearly more difficult, and, you can never more be "boys together."
On that day a week later Captain Tregurtha was off again to sea, in command, in a measure through the admiral's interest, of a fine ship, the Damietta.
Rosetta, who did not see the captain again before he went, has taken first-class honors in the Junior Cambridge Exam. of the year (logic being specially commended), and she has now entered upon an engrossing project in conjunction with the admiral for the importation of some "Hereford" white-face cattle on to the Braceton farm.
Admiral Sir John Villiers bides his time. When Roscoria comes home to cane his boys he will live to find a rod in pickle for himself. But little recks the lover of the future thunders, for he is living under a cloudless sky. Unlike most folk of the present day, Lyndis and Roscoria have rushed headlong into matrimony; and if consequences will fall heavy—why, let them! they say, as they blissfully, economically, and appropriately roam amongst the myrtles in the Scilly Isles.
[Transcriber's Note:]
A table of contents has been added.