vely girl, with a frank face, and wonderful eyes;
so large, so soft, so bright, set to such perfection in her kind good
head. She was round and fresh and dimpled and spoilt, and there was in
Pet an air of timidity and dependence which was the best weakness in
the world, and gave her the only crowning charm a girl so pretty and
pleasant could have been without.

'Now, I ask you,' said Mr Meagles in the blandest confidence, falling
back a step himself, and handing his daughter a step forward to
illustrate his question: 'I ask you simply, as between man and man,
you know, DID you ever hear of such damned nonsense as putting Pet in
quarantine?'

'It has had the result of making even quarantine enjoyable.' 'Come!'
said Mr Meagles, 'that's something to be sure. I am obliged to you for
that remark. Now, Pet, my darling, you had better go along with Mother
and get ready for the boat. The officer of health, and a variety of
humbugs in cocked hats, are coming off to let us out of this at last:
and all we jail-birds are to breakfast together in something approaching
to a Christian style again, before we take wing for our different
destinations. Tattycoram, stick you close to your young mistress.'

He spoke to a handsome girl with lustrous dark hair and eyes, and very
neatly dressed, who replied with a half curtsey as she passed off in the
train of Mrs Meagles and Pet. They crossed the bare scorched terrace
all three together, and disappeared through a staring white archway.
Mr Meagles's companion, a grave dark man of forty, still stood looking
towards this archway after they were gone; until Mr Meagles tapped him
on the arm.

'I beg your pardon,' said he, starting.

'Not at all,' said Mr Meagles.

They took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the wall,
getting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are placed, what
cool refreshment of sea breeze there was at seven in the morning. Mr
Meagles's companion resumed the conversation.

'May I ask you,' he said, 'what is the name of--'

'Tattycoram?' Mr Meagles struck in. 'I have not the least idea.'

'I thought,' said the other, 'that--'

'Tattycoram?' suggested Mr Meagles again.

'Thank you--that Tattycoram was a name; and I have several times
wondered at the oddity of it.'

'Why, the fact is,' said Mr Meagles, 'Mrs Meagles and myself are, you
see, practical people.'

'That you have frequently mentioned in the course of the agreeable and
intere