to put into our tea. What
better fare could one ask for? I had a pipe and tobacco with me, and
as I walked the deck in the evening with my darling, I had never felt
happier.

It was a rich autumn evening; the wind had slackened and was now a
light air, and we lingered on deck long after the light had faded in
the western sky, leaving the still young moon shining brightly over the
sea, across whose dark, wrinkled, softly-heaving surface ran the wake
of the speeding yacht, in a line like a pathway traversing a boundless
moor.

We passed one or two shadowy ships, picking them up and then dropping
them with a velocity, that to our homeward-yearning hearts was
exceedingly soothing and comforting. Then, when the strong, continuous
sweep of the breeze raised by the passage of the steamer grew too
strong for Grace, we descended into the cabin, where our sailor
attendant, lighted the fine chandelier or candelabra, and Grace and I
sat in splendour, our forms reflected in the mirrors, everything
visible as by sunlight, though there must have been some magic above
the art of the sun in those soft pencils of light flowing from the
centre-piece of oil-flames; for never before had I observed in my
darling so delicate and tender a bloom of complexion; her hair, too,
seemed to gather a deeper richness of dye, and her eyes--

But, enough of such parish talk; though I know not why a lover should
not be as fully privileged to celebrate his sweetheart's perfection in
prose, as a poet is in verse. It is a matter of custom rather than of
taste. Dante might have praised his Beatrice, Waller his Sacharissa,
Horace and Prior their Chloes, and a very great many other gentlemen a
very great many other ladies in prose sentences, quite as fine and true
to the understanding as their verse. But would they have found
readers? It is this consideration that makes me take a hurried leave
of Grace's eyes.

CHAPTER XIV

HOMEWARD BOUND

I heartily appreciated the Earl of ----'s theory of sea-beds when I
sprang into my narrow shelf of bunk, and found myself buoyant on some
very miracle of spring mattress. I slept as soundly as one who sleeps
to wake no more; but on going on deck some little while before the
breakfast was served, I was grievously disappointed to find a wet day.
There was very little wind, but the sky was one dismal surface of
leaden cloud, from which the rain was falling almost perpendicularly
with a sort of obstinacy of