rench harbour by nightfall of a summer's day, whenever
she had the whim to fly abroad. Of these enviable privileges she boasted
with some happy pride.

'It's the finest yachting-station in England,' said Beauchamp.

She expressed herself very glad that he should like it so much.
Unfortunately she added, 'I hope you will find it pleasanter to be here
than canvassing.'

'I have no pleasure in canvassing,' said he. 'I canvass poor men
accustomed to be paid for their votes, and who get nothing from me but
what the baron would call a parsonical exhortation. I'm in the thick
of the most spiritless crew in the kingdom. Our southern men will not
compare with the men of the north. But still, even among these fellows,
I see danger for the country if our commerce were to fail, if distress
came on them. There's always danger in disunion. That's what the rich
won't see. They see simply nothing out of their own circle; and they
won't take a thought of the overpowering contrast between their
luxury and the way of living, that's half-starving, of the poor. They
understand it when fever comes up from back alleys and cottages, and
then they join their efforts to sweep the poor out of the district. The
poor are to get to their work anyhow, after a long morning's walk over
the proscribed space; for we must have poor, you know. The wife of a
parson I canvassed yesterday, said to me, "Who is to work for us, if you
do away with the poor, Captain Beauchamp?"'

Cecilia quitted her bower and traversed the wood silently.

'So you would blow up my poor Mount Laurels for a peace-offering to the
lower classes?'

'I should hope to put it on a stronger foundation, Cecilia.'

'By means of some convulsion?'

'By forestalling one.'

'That must be one of the new ironclads,' observed Cecilia, gazing at the
black smoke-pennon of a tower that slipped along the water-line. 'Yes?
You were saying? Put us on a stronger----?'

'It's, I think, the Hastings: she broke down the other day on her trial
trip,' said Beauchamp, watching the ship's progress animatedly. 'Peppel
commands her--a capital officer. I suppose we must have these costly big
floating barracks. I don't like to hear of everything being done for
the defensive. The defensive is perilous policy in war. It's true,
the English don't wake up to their work under half a year. But, no:
defending and looking to defences is bad for the fighting power; and
there's half a million gone on that ship. Ha