nging knell of the Spit buoy bell and
rattling the windows and doors, like some desperate burglar on thoughts
of plunder bent trying to effect a forcible entry.

Not satisfied with this alone, `Rude Boreas' sent one of his imps down
the chimney to frighten poor Nellie, who lay trembling in bed, by
flapping up and down the register of the grate; while another would
every now and then boldly rush up and grip hold of the house, shaking it
viciously and causing it to rock from roof to basement--the rebuffed
rascal then sailing away with a shriek of disappointed spite and rage,
moaning and groaning like a creature in pain as it went off to vent its
malice elsewhere!

Ere long the sea, unable to keep its temper under the bad treatment it
received from the wind, which blew in its face most insultingly and kept
continually `pitting and patting it,' baker-man fashion, in a very
aggravating way, began to boil up in anger, lashing itself into a
passion and roaring with fury; while the noise Neptune made by and by
deadened the roar of his assailant as he flung himself aloft in his
struggles to grapple his nimble foe, and, missing his aim, rolled onward
his boiling waves until they broke on the beach with the shock of an
earthquake, amid a hurricane of foam!

The awesome sound of wave and sea combined kept Bob awake nearly all
night, the same as it did poor Nellie; the noise being so strange to
their London ears, although, in some respects, somewhat similar to that
of the street traffic of the metropolis.

Not only did it keep him awake, but the battle of the elements made
Master Bob get up much earlier than usual; for he came down to the
drawing-room before Sarah had time to finish dusting the furniture.

Here he was soon afterwards joined by Nellie, who was equally `spry' in
her movements; and the pair amused themselves till breakfast was ready
in looking out of the windows at the busy scene which the offing
presented, so different to that of the previous evening, when all was
quiet and calm, with Neptune gone to sleep and Boreas speaking but in a
whisper!

The whilom glassy surface of the deep was now, however, a mass of short
choppy waves, the sea king's `white horses' leaping up friskily in every
direction and chasing each other as they rolled in landward, throwing
aloft clouds of feathery spray in their sport, as if champing it from
their bits. Such was the scene far as the eye could span away to the
eastward, where th