might afford any shelter to an
enemy creeping up to assault the gates by the waterside.

Dr. Burke came in with Captain O'Halloran to dinner, ten days after
the gates had been closed.

"You are quite a stranger, Teddy," Mrs. O'Halloran said.

"I am that," he replied; "but you are going to be bothered with me
again, now; we have got everything in apple pie order, and are ready to
take half the garrison under our charge. There has been lots to do. All
the medical stores have been overhauled, and lists made out and sent
home of everything that can be required--medicines and comforts, and
lint and bandages, and splints and wooden legs; and goodness knows
what, besides. We hope they will be out in the first convoy.

"There is a privateer going to sail, tomorrow; so if you want to
send letters home, or to order anything to be sent out to you, you
had better take the opportunity. Have you got everything you want,
for the next two or three years?"

"Two or three years!" Carrie repeated, in tones of alarm. "You mean
two or three months."

"Indeed, and I don't. If the French and the Dons have made up their
mind to take this place, and once set to fairly to do it, they are
bound to stick to it for a bit. I should say you ought to provide
for three years."

"But that is downright nonsense, Teddy. Why, in three months there
ought to be a fleet here that would drive all the French and
Spaniards away."

"Well, if you say there ought to be, there ought," the doctor said,
"but where is it to come from? I was talking to some of the naval
men, yesterday; and they all say it will be a long business, if the
French and Spanish are in earnest. The French navy is as strong as
ours, and the Spaniards have got nearly as many ships as the
French. We have got to protect our coasts and our trade, to convoy
the East Indian fleets, and to be doing something all over the
world; and they doubt whether it would be possible to get together
a fleet that could hope to defeat the French and Spanish navies,
combined.

"Well, have you been laying in stores, Mrs. O'Halloran?"

"Yes, we have bought two sacks of flour, and fifty pounds of sugar;
ten pounds of tea, and a good many other things."

"If you will take my advice," the doctor said earnestly, "you will
lay in five times as much. Say ten sacks of flour, two hundred-weight
of sugar, and everything else in proportion. Those sort of things
haven't got up in price, yet; but you will see, every