But on the day of the Admiral's merry-making, this was, beyond cavil, kind.

Four boats started from the Town Quay; four boats--alas!--could by this time contain the _cumeelfo_ of Troy; for everybody who was anybody had been invited, and nobody (with the exception of the Honourable Frederic, who could not leave his telescope) had refused.

Sam Buzza did not start with the rest, but was to follow later; and in his absence Mr.Moggridge paid impressive court to Mrs.Goodwyn-Sandys, though uneasily, for Sophia's saddened eyes were upon him.
Yet everybody seemed in the best of spirits and tempers.
The Admiral, after bestowing his wife in another boat, and glaring vindictively at Kit's House, where the figure of Mr.Fogo was visible on the beach, grew exceedingly jocose, and cracked his most admired jokes, including his famous dialogue with the echo just beyond Kit's House--a performance which Miss Limpenny declared she had seldom heard him give with such spirit.

She herself, spurred to emulation, told her favourite story, which began, "In the Great Exhibition of Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-one, when her Majesty--long may she reign!--partook of a public luncheon--" and contained a most diverting incident about a cherry-pie.

And always, at decent intervals, she would exclaim-- "Did you ever see anything more lovely ?" To which the Admiral as religiously would reply-- "Really, I never did." Indeed the scene was, as Mrs.Goodwyn-Sandys, in another boat, observed, "Like a poet's dream"-- a remark at which Mr.Moggridge blushed very much.