ast as her decrepit legs would carry her.
The serving-girl, who had opened the door on the previous evening,
stood beside the window, her eyes swollen with weeping.

"He is extremely small," said the Captain.

"On the contrary, he is an unusually fine boy."

"He appears to me to want something."

"He wants food."

"Bless my soul! Has none been offered to him?"

"Yes; but he refuses it."

"Extraordinary!"

"Not at all. I understand--do I not?--that you have adopted this
infant."

The Captain nodded.

"Then your parental duties have already begun. You must come with me
at once and choose a wet nurse."

As they passed through the hall to the front-door, Captain Barker
perceived two letters lying side by side upon a table there.
He snatched them up hastily and crammed one into his pocket.
Then, handing the other to Dr. Beckerleg:

"You might give that to Jemmy when you see him, and--look here, as
soon as the child is out of the house, I think--if you went to
Jemmy--he might like to see Meg, you know."

CHAPTER III.

THE TWO PAVILIONS.

Captain Barker and Captain Runacles had been friends from boyhood.
They had been swished together at Dr. Huskisson's school, hard by the
Water Gate; had been packed off to sea in the same ship, and
afterwards had more than once smelt powder together. Admiral Blake
and Sir Christopher Mings had turned them into tough fighters by sea;
and Margaret Tellworthy had completed their education ashore, and
made them better friends by rejecting both. In an access of misogyny
they had planned and built their blue pavilions, beside the London
road, vowing to shut themselves up and look on no woman again.
This happened but a short time before the first Dutch War, in which
the one served under Captain Jonings in the _Ruby_ and the other had
the honour to be cast ashore with Prince Rupert himself, aboard the
_Galloper_. Upon the declaration of peace, in the autumn of 1667,
they had returned, and, forgetting their vow, laid siege again to
their mistress, who regretted the necessity of refusing them thrice
apiece.

Upon his third rejection, Jeremy Runacles was driven by indignation
to offer his hand at once to Mistress Isabel Seaman, sister of that
same Robert Seaman who, as Mayor of Harwich, admitted Sir Anthony
Deane to the freedom of the Corporation, and had the honour to
receive, in exchange, twelve fire-buckets for the new town-hall.
As Mistress Isabel inherited a third