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young days on the Deux-Frères-Chambasse. That made Tony feel quite old and powerful and detached, and it was for that, during some years, that he chiefly remembered this voyage; but afterwards he marked it in his memory as the occasion of his first meeting with his cousin Pamela.

She was at that time a singularly pretty child of eleven—nearly twelve, as she said; very young for her age and chronically running away from her long-suffering if very particular governess.

It was thus that Tony first saw her. She burst upon his unaccustomed vision while he was polishing brass-work on the forward-well-deck, quite early in the voyage, the day before they reached Algiers. She had a sense of adventure, having reached regions hitherto unknown to her; (by this is meant the forward-well-deck, not Algiers, which for her held no intimate appeal.) Her blue eyes shone and danced, and her adorable pink mouth was energetically shut. She was rather dazzling. Tony had never before seen her like at close quarters, and if he said to himself that she was like a coloured summer supplement to a magazine, he meant no disrespect.

“Hullo!” he said, with little enthusiasm and no originality.

Pamela was slightly surprised at being so casually addressed by a sailorman. She was no more of a snob than any normal child who has been sedulously spoilt by everyone surrounding her throughout her whole life, but she could not help being conscious that she was the small Baroness Trent. That was one of the central facts of existence—one too firmly rooted to be talked about, but of which everybody must be aware.

“Hullo!” she returned politely, but with a faint touch of coldness utterly unnoticed by Tony.

“What are you doing down here?” he said.

Inquisitive! But his tone was friendly, and Pamela was a sweet-natured child. “Running away,” she explained.