lap lazily against the mast, she can have no guidance, for there
is no steerage-way on her. She may drift with a current, or rot in a
calm, or wait to be crushed by some heavier craft surging against her.
Any wind--a squall, a hurricane--would be better than that. Such is
my case. Marriage without means is a hurricane; but I'd rather face a
hurricane than be water-logged between two winds."

"But the girl you marry--"

"The girl I marry--or rather the girl who marries _me_--will soon learn
that she's on board a privateer, and that on the wide ocean called life
there's plenty of booty to be had, for a little dash and a little danger
to grasp it."

"And is it to a condition like this you'd bring the girl you love,
Calvert?"

"Not if I had five thousand a year. If I owned that, or even four, I'd
be as decorous as yourself; and I'd send my sons to Rugby, and act as
poor-law guardian, and give my twenty pounds to the county hospital,
and be a model Englishman, to your heart's content. But I haven't five
thousand a year, no, nor five hundred a year; and as for the poor-house
and the hospital, I'm far more likely to claim the benefit than aid
the funds. Don't you see, my wise-headed friend, that the whole is a
question of money? Morality is just now one of the very dearest things
going, and even the rich cannot always afford it. As for me, a poor
sub in an Indian regiment, I no more affect it than I presume to keep a
yacht, or stand for a county."

"But what right have you to reduce another to such straits as these? Why
bring a young girl into such a conflict?"

"If ever you read Louis Blanc, my good fellow, you'd have seen that the
right of all rights is that of 'associated labour.' But come, let us not
grow too deep in the theme, or we shall have very serious faces to meet
out friends with, and yonder, where you see the drooping ash trees, is
the villa. Brush yourself up, therefore, for the coming interview; think
of your bits of Shelley and Tennyson, and who knows but you'll acquit
yourself with honour to your introducer."

"Let my introducer not be too confident," said Loyd, smiling; "but here
come the ladies."

As he spoke, two girls drew nigh the landing-place, one leaning on the
arm of the other, and in her attitude showing how dependent she was for
support.

"My bashful friend, ladies!" said Calvert, presenting Loyd. And with
this they landed.

CHAPTER VII. DISSENSION.

THE knowledge Calvert now po