ss the night on a hob, with the run of the fender
for a dressing-room), and some naval officers whom LADY DE GULES ordered
up for our service--her brother, you know, is a Lord of
Admiralty--escorted us through the dockyard, and had a boat waiting at
the stairs to take us to a great steamship lying in the harbour. Now, I
should like to know why the wives of Parliament could not have had this
very ship. There was plenty of room, nothing could be nicer. We had an
awning over us, and the Captain ordered one of the cannons to be taken
in, so that we had the porthole for a window, and there we clustered,
LADY DE GULES having shawls and things put upon the cannon, and perching
herself on the top. There were a few good people on board, but I rather
think that at the last moment, when the Admiralty authorities found that
they did not want the tickets, they flung them to the local folks, who
came on board very fussy and angular--horrid men, all in black at ten in
the morning, and women covered with jewellery, which one of the little
middies said they bought cheap of the Jews in the High Street--it _did_
look like it. However, they kept at a respectful distance, and sneered
at one another. Some of the officers on board were very attentive, and
if I wanted to marry a man in uniform, I would sooner have the
sea-livery than the land. They are fresher, and much pleasanter to talk
to than the hardened army men, and really think more of you than the
other spoiled creatures do. It was quite delightful to see them fly
about to make you comfortable, doing things the soldier-officers, as
your dreadful child calls them, would faint at the idea of--except at
Chobham, where I admit they behave very decently. I should think it was
not impossible for a woman to get to like a sailor pretty well, if she
saw nobody else.

About the sight itself, my dear LOUI, you had better ask somebody who
understood it--your husband, perhaps, for he was in the _Bulldog_, which
behaved dreadfully ill, breaking the line, or some fearful seawater
crime. First, when the QUEEN came in her yellow yacht, the guns were
fired, and then there was a long pause, while she visited the _Duke of
Wellington_, a monster of a ship with, I think they said, eleven hundred
and thirty-one guns, or tons, or something; but you must not take
figures from me. Then we all went away in a sea-procession, which was
very pretty, the great ships in long lines in the middle, hundreds of
steamboa