the middle,
her mother close by, and the miller behind, smoking. No sign of any
pyrotechnic display was visible over the port as yet, and Mrs. Loveday
passed the time by talking to the miller, who replied in monosyllables.
While this was going on Anne fancied that she heard some one approach,
and presently felt sure that Bob was drawing near her in the surrounding
darkness; but as the other two had noticed nothing she said not a word.

All at once the swarthy expanse of southward sky was broken by the blaze
of several rockets simultaneously ascending from different ships in the
roads. At the very same moment a warm mysterious hand slipped round her
own, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

'O dear!' said Anne, with a sudden start away.

'How nervous you are, child, to be startled by fireworks so far off,'
said Mrs. Loveday.

'I never saw rockets before,' murmured Anne, recovering from her
surprise.

Mrs. Loveday presently spoke again. 'I wonder what has become of Bob?'

Anne did not reply, being much exercised in trying to get her hand away
from the one that imprisoned it; and whatever the miller thought he kept
to himself, because it disturbed his smoking to speak.

Another batch of rockets went up. 'O I never!' said Anne, in a
half-suppressed tone, springing in her chair. A second hand had with the
rise of the rockets leapt round her waist.

'Poor girl, you certainly must have change of scene at this rate,' said
Mrs. Loveday.

'I suppose I must,' murmured the dutiful daughter.

For some minutes nothing further occurred to disturb Anne's serenity.
Then a slow, quiet 'a-hem' came from the obscurity of the apartment.

'What, Bob? How long have you been there?' inquired Mrs. Loveday.

'Not long,' said the lieutenant coolly. 'I heard you were all here, and
crept up quietly, not to disturb ye.'

'Why don't you wear heels to your shoes like Christian people, and not
creep about so like a cat?'

'Well, it keeps your floors clean to go slip-shod.'

'That's true.'

Meanwhile Anne was gently but firmly trying to pull Bob's arm from her
waist, her distressful difficulty being that in freeing her waist she
enslaved her hand, and in getting her hand free she enslaved her waist.
Finding the struggle a futile one, owing to the invisibility of her
antagonist, and her wish to keep its nature secret from the other two,
she arose, and saying that she did not care to see any more, felt her way
downstairs. Bob follow