and only made him frown; and unabashed
nevertheless, began playing his light artillery upon the waiters, till
he drove them out of the room bursting with laughter.

So far so good. And when the cloth was drawn, and sack and sugar became
the order of the day, and "Queen and Bible" had been duly drunk with all
the honors, Frank tried a fresh move, and--

"I have a toast, gentlemen--here it is. 'The gentlemen of the Irish
wars; and may Ireland never be without a St. Leger to stand by a
Fortescue, a Fortescue to stand by a St. Leger, and a Chichester to
stand by both.'"

Which toast of course involved the drinking the healths of the three
representatives of those families, and their returning thanks, and
paying a compliment each to the other's house: and so the ice cracked a
little further; and young Fortescue proposed the health of "Amyas Leigh
and all bold mariners;" to which Amyas replied by a few blunt kindly
words, "that he wished to know no better fortune than to sail round the
world again with the present company as fellow-adventurers, and so give
the Spaniards another taste of the men of Devon."

And by this time, the wine going down sweetly, caused the lips of them
that were asleep to speak; till the ice broke up altogether, and every
man began talking like a rational Englishman to the man who sat next
him.

"And now, gentlemen," said Frank, who saw that it was the fit moment
for the grand assault which he had planned all along; "let me give you
a health which none of you, I dare say, will refuse to drink with heart
and soul as well as with lips;--the health of one whom beauty and virtue
have so ennobled, that in their light the shadow of lowly birth
is unseen;--the health of one whom I would proclaim as peerless in
loveliness, were it not that every gentleman here has sisters, who might
well challenge from her the girdle of Venus: and yet what else dare
I say, while those same lovely ladies who, if they but use their own
mirrors, must needs be far better judges of beauty than I can be, have
in my own hearing again and again assigned the palm to her? Surely, if
the goddesses decide among themselves the question of the golden apple,
Paris himself must vacate the judgment-seat. Gentlemen, your hearts, I
doubt not, have already bid you, as my unworthy lips do now, to drink
'The Rose of Torridge.'"

If the Rose of Torridge herself had walked into the room, she could
hardly have caused more blank astonishment th