the mist came the black shapes of war-ships, moving
majestically up the harbour--one might have fancied, with a kind of
injured dignity, because their unreasonable fellows had been faster and
had gone farther afield than they.

I walked back to my motor, disappointed indeed, and yet exulting.
It was good to realise personally through this small incident,
the mobility and ever-readiness of the Fleet--the absolute
insignificance--non-existence even--of any civilian or shore interest, for
the Navy at its work. It was not till a week later that I received an
amusing and mysterious line from Commodore ----, the most courteous of
men.

[Illustration: Marines Drilling on the Quarterdeck of a British
Battleship.]

[Illustration: Fifteen-inch Guns on a British Battleship.]

IV

By the time it reached me, however, I was on the shores of a harbour in
the far north "visiting the Fleet," indeed, and on the invitation of
England's most famous sailor. Let me be quite modest about it. Not for me
the rough waters, or the thunderous gun-practice--

"Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides"--

which I see described in the letters of the Russian or American
journalists who have been allowed to visit the Grand Fleet. There had
been some talk, I understand, of sending me out in a destroyer; it was
mercifully abandoned. All the same, I must firmly put on record that mine
was "a visit to the Fleet," by Admiralty permission, for the purpose of
these letters to you, and through you to the American public, and that I
seem to have been so far the only woman who, for newspaper ends, has been
allowed to penetrate those mysterious northern limits where I spent two
wonderful days.

It was, indeed, a wintry visit. The whole land was covered with snow. The
train could hardly drag itself through the choked Highland defiles; and it
was hours behind its time when we arrived at a long-expected station, and
a Vice-Admiral looking at me with friendly, keen eyes came to the carriage
to greet me. "My boat shall meet you at the pier with my Flag-Lieutenant
to-morrow morning. You will pick me up at the Flag-ship, and I will take
you round the Fleet. You will lunch with me, I hope, afterwards." I tried
to show my grateful sense both of the interest and the humour of the
situation. My kind visitor disappeared, and the train carried me on a few
miles farther to my destination for the night.

And here I take a few words fro