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and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in themselves and everything around them, was most beautiful.

The large Indiaman was our great attraction, because she had come into the Downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats; and we said how glad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. Charley was curious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the serpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much faster than grammar, I told her what I knew on those points. I told her, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast on rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of one man. And Charley asking how that could be, I told her how we knew at home of such a case.

I had thought of sending Richard a note, saying I was there, but it seemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he lived in barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we went out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack yard, we found everything very quiet at that time in the morning; and I asked a serjeant standing on the guardhouse-steps, where he lived. He sent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and knocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us.

“Now then!” cried Richard, from within. So I left Charley in the little passage, and going on to the half-open door, said, “Can I come in, Richard. It's only Dame Durden.”

He was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin cases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus, strewn all about the floor. He was only half-dressed—in plain clothes, I observed, not in uniform—and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as his room. All this I saw after he had heartily welcomed me, and I was seated near him, for he started upon hearing my voice and caught me in his arms in a moment. Dear Richard! He was ever the same to me. Down to-ah, poor poor fellow!—to the end, he never received me but with something of his old merry boyish manner.

“Good Heaven, my dear little woman,” said he, “how do you come here. Who could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? Ada is well?”

“Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!”

“Ah!” he said, leaning back in his chair. “My poor cousin! I was writing to you, Esther.”

So worn and haggard as he looked, even in the fulness of his handsome youth, leaning back in his chair, and crushing the closely written sheet of paper in his hand!

“Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to read it after all?” I asked.

“Oh my dear,” he returned, with a hopeless gesture. “You may read it in the whole room. It is all over here.”

I mildly entreated him not to be despondent. I told him that I had heard by chance of his being in difficulty, and had come to consult with him what could best be done.

“Like you, Esther, but useless, and so not like you!” said he with a melancholy smile. “I am away on leave this day—should have been gone in another hour—and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out. Well!