BY

ANNIE THOMAS,

(MRS. PENDER CUDLIP.)

AUTHOR OF

"DENIS DONNE," "NO ALTERNATIVE,” “HE
COMETH NOT. SHE SAID," ETC. ETC.

HERE is a magnificent mingling of the elements in the scene. The wide stretch of well-wooded, hilland-valley diversified country, which stretches

away beyond the cricket ground, is as fair a portion of our Mother Earth as any that can be found in England. Plenty of air comes into the shrub-bedecked ball-room, through the rose and clematis-covered chinks in the rough woodwork of the walls. There is fire enough. in the hearts of those gallant-looking naval men who have run up from Plymouth for the Torquay Cricket Dance, to ignite any number of matches, and water is pouring down in a persistent flood from the skies that are wetter in Devonshire than in any other part of the country.

Under the shade of the wide verandalı many a fair young form leans against the ivy-wreathed pillars which support the rustic edifice, listening, in the lassitude which is the offspring of flattery and vanity, to the fluent talk of the versatile sailors. H.M.S. Irrepressible has only been in port in Plymouth for a week, and already her officers have distinguished themselves by their dauntless conduct in the ball-room and the otter-hunting field. Their prowess after Trelawney's hounds still remains to be tested.

The Irrepressible has been on foreign service for three

B

years, and these men have three years' bottled-up spirits to get rid of. "It's all very well for those fellows who have been doing the dolce far niente in the Mediterranean," they say, "but we have been cut off from everything lively excepting fever on the West Coast of Africa-we have a good deal of time to make up."

To do them justice they redeem the time to the best of their several abilities, by shooting folly flying, and gathering their roses while they may; pursuing the soft-eyed otter along the banks of the winding Erme and Yealm, and generally taking all that Plymouth and the country round about offers them in the way of instruction and amusement.

Naturally, they, being of the exhaustive order, come to the end of Plymouth and its neighbourhood very shortly, and cast out their lines towards the adjacent towns. So behold them now at Torquay, radiant in their uniforms, with the rich tan of service upon their faces, and the effervescent spirit of a regular break-loose from dull routine hovering over them.

66

The marked man in the room this night is the Flag Captain of the Port Admiral's ship. He has come up with the Irrepressibles" partly out of his Irish good-nature, partly of curiosity to see what sort of aim the "Irrepressibles" will take, and what they will bring down-and partly for another reason.

He is the marked man in the room this night, by right of several attributes which women (the arbiters) deem almost divine. He is as gallant, daring, skilful, and noted a rider in the field as has ever followed the famed South Devon hounds. He is as handsome as anything that is not the creation of a Greek sculptor can be, and he has the winning tongue and grace, the mixture of effrontery and chivalry, which only belong to the sons of Erin.

He is standing now, just outside the glare of the lamps which are trained about and softened with wreaths of ivy, talking to a girl who is even more in the shade than himself, for she has passed the barrier and stands out on the balcony. But though no fierce light beats upon her, she is very clearly revealed to many people, for she is no

power but only a casual visitor in this place. The girl is a beauty, and she has no friends here; she rides well and boldly, and her father is a reserved invalid who keeps people at bay.

"You tell me how you spend your mornings," the man says. "You go down to the baths with your father and wait while he boils himself first and chills himself down to the proper degree afterwards; but what do you do with your afternoons? and, by Jove, they must be long here!" "You unconscious lotus-eater," the girl laughs out; "you've come into a land in which it seemeth always afternoon, and you're tripping over Tennyson without knowing it. Well, to answer your question, I ride after luncheon. I've a dear mare, and I ride-oh! everywhere."

"Do you ever ride to Newton Abbott ?" the man asks. "I should think so. Guinevere and I take Newton as our preliminary canter, and then we go on to Ashburton or on the moor, or anywhere; I don't care much where it is, if the roads don't knock her legs to pieces."

"What a jolly picture you must make on Guinevere," he says enthusiastically: and all his Irish love of fair women and fine horses wakes up.

The idea of making a picture in conjunction with her pet horse has never presented itself to the girl before, but still she does not dislike it in the flash in which she sees it. When he ceases speaking she says:

"I wish yon could see her. She looks like 'going' all over; she jumps like a cat, has the reputation of having kicked a town down after she was bought off the racecourse where they over-ran her, you know; and I am the only woman who has ever been on her back. I shouldn't like to see another there."

He laughs lightly to himself as he looks down at the girl's bright, eager, uplifted face.

"Jealous as fire about her mare,' he thinks, and "wonders how will the fellow manage her with whom she falls in love."

The solution of this problem absorbs the naval Adonis for some time, and by the time he has arrived at a satisfactory conclusion, he has looked at the girl so long and