nt is not marching past?'

'We take it by turns, and it is not our turn,' said Loveday.

She wanted to know then if they were afraid that the King would be
carried off by the First Consul. Yes, Loveday told her; and his Majesty
was rather venturesome. A day or two before he had gone so far to sea
that he was nearly caught by some of the enemy's cruisers. 'He is
anxious to fight Boney single-handed,' he said.

'What a good, brave King!' said Anne.

Loveday seemed anxious to come to more personal matters. 'Will you let
me take you round to the other side, where you can see better?' he asked.
'The Queen and the princesses are at the window.'

Anne passively assented. 'David, wait here for me,' she said; 'I shall
be back again in a few minutes.'

The trumpet-major then led her off triumphantly, and they skirted the
crowd and came round on the side towards the sands. He told her
everything he could think of, military and civil, to which Anne returned
pretty syllables and parenthetic words about the colour of the sea and
the curl of the foam--a way of speaking that moved the soldier's heart
even more than long and direct speeches would have done.

'And that other thing I asked you?' he ventured to say at last.

'We won't speak of it.'

'You don't dislike me?'

'O no!' she said, gazing at the bathing-machines, digging children, and
other common objects of the seashore, as if her interest lay there rather
than with him.

'But I am not worthy of the daughter of a genteel professional man--that's
what you mean?'

'There's something more than worthiness required in such cases, you
know,' she said, still without calling her mind away from surrounding
scenes. 'Ah, there are the Queen and princesses at the window!'

'Something more?'

'Well, since you will make me speak, I mean the woman ought to love the
man.'

The trumpet-major seemed to be less concerned about this than about her
supposed superiority. 'If it were all right on that point, would you
mind the other?' he asked, like a man who knows he is too persistent, yet
who cannot be still.

'How can I say, when I don't know? What a pretty chip hat the elder
princess wears?'

Her companion's general disappointment extended over him almost to his
lace and his plume. 'Your mother said, you know, Miss Anne--'

'Yes, that's the worst of it,' she said. 'Let us go back to David; I
have seen all I want to see, Mr. Loveday.'

The mass of the people had