discernible from the rocks and
grass amid which they stood. The priest gave a peculiar call, which
soon brought out a number of shaggy-looking heads and eager faces with
grey frieze-coats beneath them. Father O'Rourke did not take long to
explain the object of his visit, which was quickly comprehended, nor did
he wrongly estimate the inclinations of his hearers, who gleefully
undertook to carry out the plan he proposed to them. All things being
arranged to his satisfaction, he returned to his own abode, saying to
himself, "I warned him of danger, so that if he is attacked and escapes,
he cannot accuse me of having had anything to do in the matter."

The officer was about to prosecute his intention of descending into the
cove, when he heard merry voices near him. The speakers seemed to be
climbing up the cliffs, and they soon made their appearance on its
summit. Touching their caps as they neared the officer--

"The boat has come for you, sir," said one of them.

"Very well," was the answer. "Go down and amuse yourselves on the beach
for a short time and I will join you. I am not ready to go off just
yet."

The young midshipmen receiving these orders managed to get down the
cliffs in a way few but midshipmen could have done without breaking
their necks.

"I wonder what our captain's about," said one of them. "I should have
thought that he would have gone to the Castle. Lord Kilfinnan lives
there, you know; and I remember hearing how constantly he used to be at
his house out in the West Indies. Did you ever see Lady Nora?"

"No," answered the other; "I do not remember having heard her spoken
of."

"Oh, she is the Earl's daughter, and a very beautiful girl she is, too,"
observed the first speaker. "There is Lady Sophy Danvers, her cousin,
too, who lives with her. She was engaged for a long time to that
Captain Falkner, you know, who commanded the _Cynthia_; but, I suppose
her relations did not like her to marry him because he wasn't a lord,
and intended her for a duke or a marquis perhaps."

"I do not see why they should have done that," answered the other
midshipman. "In my opinion, a naval officer is equal to any lord in the
land; at all events, a post-captain is. If I were a post-captain, I
know, I should not hesitate to pay my respects to any earl's daughter.
Why, just think, to have a fine frigate and three or four hundred men
under one's orders, and, by-and-by, a line-of-battle ship, and then a