.--I am a little confused; she is very
abstruse.--Because, that is the corruptible life, she says. I have found
it quite impossible to argue with her; she has always a complete answer;
wonderful. In case of Invasion, we are to lift our voices to the Lord;
and the Lord's will shall be manifested. If we are robbed, we ask, How
came we by the goods? It is unreasonable; it strikes at rights of
property. But I have to go on thinking. When in danger, she sings without
excitement. When the blow struck her, she stopped singing only an
instant. She says, no one fears, who has real faith. She will not let me
call her brave. She cannot admire Captain Dartrey. Her principles are
opposed. She said to him, "Sir, you did what seemed to you right." She
thinks every blow struck sends us back to the state of the beasts. Her
principles . . .'

'How was it Captain Dartrey happened to be present, Skepsey?'

'She is very firm. You cannot move her.--Captain Dartrey was on his way
to the station, to meet a gentleman from London, Miss Nesta. He carried a
stick--a remarkable stick--he had shown to me in the morning, and he has
given it me now. He says, he has done his last with it. He seems to have
some of Matilda Pridden's ideas about fighting, when it's over. He was
glad to be rid of the stick, he said.'

'But who attacked you? What were the people?'

'Captain Dartrey says, England may hold up her head while she breeds
young women like Matilda Pridden: right or wrong, he says: it is the
substance.'

Hereupon Manton, sick of Miss Pridden, shook the little man with a
snappish word, to bring him to attention. She got him together
sufficiently for him to give a lame version of the story; flat until he
came to his heroine's behaviour, when he brightened a moment, and he sank
back absorbed in her principles and theories of life. It was understood
by Nesta, that the processionists, going at a smart pace, found their way
blocked and were assaulted in one of the sidestreets; and that Skepsey
rushed to the defence of Matilda Pridden; and that, while they were
engaged, Captain Dartrey was passing at the end of the street, and
recognized one he knew in the thick of it and getting the worst of it,
owing to numbers. 'I will show you the stick he did it with, Miss Nests';
said Skepsey, regardless of narrative; and darted out of the room to
bring in the Demerara supple-jack; holding which, he became inspired to
relate something of Captain Dartrey's deeds