may be thought that the Admiralty are thereby relieved of that responsibility, which ought not to be shared with any other co-ordinate authority. It must, however, be acknowledged that at the present time the shipbuilding problem presents difficulties quite unparalleled in the previous history of the navy. I gladly acknowledge that the present Naval Lords, if they were not in office, would constitute a most able commission. But my fear is that, at the present moment, they have no leisure to investigate new problems of armament, tactics, and construction. Mr. Samuda, in seconding a motion. introduced in the House of Commons by Mr. Seeley in 1868 said-as I think, truly that when a great policy had been inaugurated, he could well understand that a department of the State might efficiently carry it out; but it was unlikely that such a policy could be initiated by a Government department. The State, by appointing a commission of inquiry, would obtain the assistance of men of the greatest ability, experience, and knowledge in the kingdom, who would freely give evidence. Similar views were expressed, though with becoming official reserve, in the same debate by Mr. Childers. He wished for some plan which, without diminishing the responsibility of the constructive department of the Admiralty, would give it the advantage of a certain amount of scientific investigation and advice.

Investigations such as that proposed in the case of the Inflexible can scarcely fail to do good. The public is supplied with the latest information on the condition of the matériel of the navy, and the Admiralty may receive novel and valuable hints for the improvement of the fleet.

THOMAS BRASSEY.

N.B.-The first intelligence of the engagement between the Shah, the Amethyst, and the Huascar, had not

reached this country when the foregoing pages were written. Even now official information is wanting. What we already know, however, is sufficient to prove that evolutionary qualities are of the highest importance, that deep draught is a serious disadvantage, and that a mixed armament, including an adequate proportion of armour-piercing guns, is necessary to constitute an efficient vessel of war. It has been said that an encounter between an unarmoured and an armoured vessel is so unequal that an officer in command of an unarmoured ship would always be justified in declining an engagement; but, while the British navy continues to be animated by its ancient spirit, a commander will never decline an action so long as his vessel remains afloat. When we take into view the expenditure on the unarmoured Shah, and the circumstance that she was manned by a crew of 600 men, it is unsatisfactory in the highest degree to know how unequal was the battle between the British flagship and the Peruvian ironclad. If we give up armour, let us at least secure a compensation in superiority of numbers. It may not be worth while for the protection of commerce to construct ships so costly as the smallest armoured cruiser must needs be; but, if we do abandon armour, let us be content with a vessel of moderate tonnage, of the Alabama type. By so doing, we shall construct three or four unarmoured vessels for the price of one Shah, and, by combining squadrons of small vessels in battle against one larger antagonist, we can compensate for inferiority of armour and guns by superiority in that formidable weapon, the ram. If, instead of one Shah, Admiral de Horsey had had three or four rams under his command, he would probably have sunk or captured the Huascar.

T. B.

PART VIII.

CHAPTER XXII.

AT HOME.

It was still early, and Stanton, so easygoing and leisurely a house, was not yet astir when Geoff got home. Hours of sunshine and morning light are over even in August before seven o'clock, which was the earliest hour at which Lady Stanton's servants, who were all "so kind" to her, began to stir. They kept earlier hours at Penninghame, where Geoff managed to get a dog-cart, with an inquisitive driver, who recognised, and would fain have discovered what brought him from home at that hour. The young man, however, first took leave of his little companion, whom he deposited safely at the door of the old hall, which was already open, and where they parted with mutual vows of reliance and faith in each other. These vows, however, were not exchanged by the hall-gate, but in a shady corner of the chase, where the two young creatures paused for a moment.

"You will trust me that I will do everything for him, as if he had been my own father?" said Geoff, eagerly.

Lilias was less easily contented, as was natural, and replied with some hesitation :

"I would rather it was me; I would rather find out everything, and bring him home," she said.

"But Lily, what could you do? while you see I know a great deal already," Geoff said. It was a bargain not altogether satisfactory to the little woman, who was thus condemned, as so many grown women have been, to wait indefinitely for the action of another, in a matter so deeply interesting to herself.

Lilias looked at him wistfully, with

an anxious curve over her eyebrows, and a quiver in her mouth. The tension of suspense had begun for her, which is one of the hardest burdens of a woman. Oh, if she could but have gone herself, not waiting for any one, to the old woman on the hill! It was true the mountains were very lonely, and the relief of meeting Geoff had been intense; and though she had not gone half way, or nearly so much, her limbs were aching with the unusual distance; but yet to be tired, and lonely, and frightened is nothing, as Lilias felt, to this waiting, which might never come to an end. And already the ease and comfort and sudden relief with which she had leant upon Geoff's understanding and sympathy had evaporated a little, leaving behind only the strange story about her father, the sudden discovery of trouble and sorrow which had startled her almost into womanhood out of childhood. She looked up into Geoff's face very wistfully-very eagerly; her eyes dilated, and gleaming with that curve over them which once indented in young brows so seldom altogether disappears again.

"Oh, Mr. Geoff!" she said, "but papa-is not your papa: and you will perhaps have other things to do: or perhaps you will forget. But me, I shall be always thinking. I will never forget," said the little girl.

"And neither will I forget, my little Lily!" he cried. He too was nervous and tremulous with excitement and fatigue. He stooped towards her, holding her hands. "Give me a kiss, Lily, and I will never forget."

The day before she would not have thought much of that infantile salutation--and she put up her soft cheek readily enough, with the child's simple habit; but when the two faces touched, a flood of colour came over both,

scorching Lilias, as it seemed, with a sense of shame which bewildered her, which she did not understand. She drew back hastily, with a sudden cry. Sympathy, or some other feeling still more subtle and incomprehensible, made Geoff's young countenance flame too. He looked at her with a tenderness that brought the tears to his eyes.

"You are only a child," he said, hastily, apologetically; "and I suppose I am not much more, as people say," he added, with a little broken laugh. Then, after a pause--" But Lily, we will never forget that we have met this morning; and what one of us does will be for both of us; and you will always think of me as I shall always think of you. Is it a bargain, Lily?"

"Always!" said the little girl, very solemnly; and she gave him her hand again which she had drawn away, and her other cheek; and this time the kiss got accomplished solemnly, as if it had been a religious ceremony on both sides which indeed, perhaps, in one way or another it was.

When Geoff felt himself carried rapidly after this, behind a fresh country horse, with the inquisitive ruddy countenance of Robert Gill from the 66 'Penninghame Arms" by his side, along the margin of Penninghame Water towards his home, there was a thrill and tremor in him which he could not quite account for. By the time he had got half way home, however, he had begun to believe that the tremor meant nothing more than a nervous uncertainty as to how he should get into Stanton, and in what state of abject terror he might find his mother. Even to his own unsophisticated mind, the idea of being out all night had an alarming and disreputable sound; and probably Lady Stanton had been devoured by all manner of terrors. The perfectly calm aspect of the house, however, comforted Geoff; no one seemed stirring, except in the lower regions of the house, where the humblest of its

As for Geoff, he stole up through the shrubberies to reconnoitre the house and see where he could most easily make an entrance, with a halfcomic sense of vagabondism; a man who behaved so ought to be guilty. But he was greatly surprised to see the library window through which he had come out on the previous night wide open; and yet more surprised to hear, at the sound of his own cautious footstep on the gravel, a still more cautious movement within, and to descry the kindly countenance of Mr. Tritton, his tutor, with a red nose and red eyes as from want of sleep, looking out with great precaution.

He

Mr. Tritton's anxious countenance lighted up at sight of him. came to the window very softly, but with great eagerness, to admit Geoff, and threw himself upon his pupil. "Where have you been-where have you been? But thank God you have come back," he cried, in a voice which was broken by agitation.

Geoff could not but laugh, serious as he had been before. Good Mr. Tritton had a dressing-gown thrown over his evening toilet of the previous night; his white tie was all rumpled and disreputable. He had caught a cold, poor good man, with the open window, and sneezed even as he received his prodigal; his nose was red, and so were his eyes, which watered half with cold, half with emotion.

thank God you have come back; and if I can keep it from the knowledge of her ladyship, I will." Then, though he was so tired and so serious, Geoff could not but laugh.

"Have you been sitting up for me? How good of you! and what a cold you have got!" he said, struggling between mirth and gratitude. "Have you kept it from my mother? But I have been doing no harm, master. You need not look at me so anxiously. I have been walking almost all the night, and doing no harm."

"My dear Geoff! I have been very uneasy, of course. You never did anything of the kind before. Walking all night! you must be dead tired; but that is secondary, quite secondary: if you can really assure me, on your honoursaid the anxious tutor, looking at him, with his little white whiskers framing his little red face, more like a good little old woman than

ever,

and with a look of the most anxious scrutiny in his watery eyes. Mr. Tritton was very virtuous and very particular in his own bacherlorly person, and there had crept upon him besides something of the feminine fervour of anxiety about his charge, which was in the air of this feminine and motherly house.

"On my honour!" said Geoff, meeting his gaze with laughing eyes.

And a pang of relief filled Mr. Tritton's mind. He was almost overcome by it, and could have cried but for his dignity-and, indeed, did cry for his cold. He said, faltering, "Thank Heaven, Geoff! I have been very anxious, my dear boy. Your mother does not know anything about it. I found the window open, and then I found your room vacant. I thought you might have-stepped out-perhaps gone to smoke a cigar. A cigar in the fresh air after dinner is perhaps the least objectionable form of the indulgence, as you have often heard me say. So I waited, especially as I had something to say to you. Then, as I found you did not come in, I became anxious --yes, very anxious as the night went

"Yes, I see, you have caught cold. Go to bed now, master, and so shall I,” said Geoff. "I am dead tired. What a sneeze! and all on my account; and you have such bad colds."

"Yes," said Mr. Tritton, blowing his nose vehemently, "I have very bad colds. They last so long. I have sneezed so I really did fear the house would be roused, but servants fortunately sleep through anything. Geoff! I don't want to force confidence, but it really would be right that you should confide in me: otherwise how can I be sure that her ladyship-ought not," said the good man with a fresh sneeze, "to know-?"

"You ought to be in bed, and so ought I," said Geoff. "I will tell my mother, don't fear; but perhaps it will be as well not to say anything more just at present. Master, you must really go this moment and take care of yourself. Come, and I will see you to your room

It

"Ah! it is my part to look after you, Geoff," said good Mr. Tritton. might be supposed-her ladyship might think-that I had neglected

"Come along," said Geoff, arbitrarily, "to bed." And how glad he was to stretch out his own young limbs, and forget everything in the profound sleep of his age: Mr. Tritton had very much the worst of it. He did nothing but sneeze for the next two hours, waking himself up every time he went to sleep; and his head ached, and his eyes watered, and the good man felt thoroughly wretched.

"Oh, there is that poor Mr. Tritton with one of his bad colds again," Lady Stanton said, who was disturbed by the sound, and, though she was a good woman, the pity in her face was not unmixed by other sentiments. "We shall have nothing but sneezing for the next month," she said to herself in an undertone. And doubtless still less

favourable judgments were pronounced down stairs. A glass was found on the table of the library in which Mr. Tritton, good man, had taken some camphor by way of staving off his cold while he sat and watched. Benson the butler, perversely and unkindly (for who could mistake the smell of camphor ?) declared that "old Tritton had been making a night of it. He don't surprise me with his bad colds," said that functionary; "look at the colour of his nose!" And indeed it could not be denied that this was red, as the nose of a man subject to fits of sneezing is apt to be.

When Geoff woke in the broad sunshine, and found that it was nearly noon, his first feeling of consternation was soon lost in the strange realization of all that had happened since his last waking, which suddenly came upon his mind like something new, and more real than before. The perspective even of a few hours' sleep makes any new fact or discovery more distinct. So many emotions had followed each other through his mind, that such an interval was necessary to make him feel the real importance of all that he had heard and seen. 'Lizabeth Bampfylde had said what there was to say in few words, but the facts alone were sufficient to tell the strange story. The chief difficulty was that Geoff had never heard of the elder son, whom the vagrant called his gentleman brother, and to whom the family and more than the family seemed to have been sacrificed. He did not remember any mention of the Bampfyldes except of the mother and daughter who had helped John Musgrave to escape, and one of whom had disappeared with him, and the mystery which surrounded this other individual, who seemed really the chief actor in the tragedy, had yet to be made out. His mind was full of this as he dressed hastily, with sundry interruptions. The household had not quite made out the events of the past night, but that there had been something "out of the common" was evident to the meanest capacity. The library

window had been open all night, which was the fault of Mr. Tritton who had undertaken to close it, begging Benson to go to bed, and not to mind. Mr. Tritton himself had been seen by an early scullion in his white tie, very much ruffled, at six o'clock; and the volleys of sneezing which had disturbed the house at seven, had been distinctly heard moving about like musketry on a march, now at one point, now another of the corridor and stairs. To crown all these strange commotions, was the fact that the young master of the house, instead of obeying Benson's call at half-past seven, did not budge (and then with reluctance) till eleven o'clock. If all these occurrences meant nothing, why then Mr. Benson pronounced himself a Dutchman, and the wonder breathed upwards from the kitchen and housekeeper's room to my lady's chamber, where her maid did all a maid could do (and that is not little, as most heads of a family know) to awaken suspicion. It was suggested to her ladyship that it was very strange that Mr. Tritton should have been walking about the house at seven in the morning, waking up my lady with his sneezings-and it was a mercy there had not been a robbery with the library window "open to the ground," left open all night; and then for my lord to be in bed at eleven was a thing that had never happened before since his lordship had the measles. hope he is not sickening for one of these fevers," Lady Stanton's attendant said.

"I

This made Geoff's mother start, and give a suppressed scream of apprehension, and inquire anxiously whether there was any fever about. She had already in her cool drawing-room, over her needlework, felt a vague uneasiness. Geoff had never, since those days of the measles, missed breakfast and prayers before; he had sent her word that he had overslept himself, that he had been sitting up late on the previous nightbut altogether it was odd. Lady Stanton, however, subdued her panic, and sat still and dismissed her maid,