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‘Gad, what a fine night, and how bright the moon is!’
George said, with a puff of his cigar, which went soaring up
skywards.
‘How delicious they smell in the open air! I adore them.
Who’d think the moon was two hundred and thirty-six
thousand eight hundred and forty-seven miles off?’ Becky
added, gazing at that orb with a smile. ‘Isn’t it clever of me to
remember that? Pooh! we learned it all at Miss Pinkerton’s!
How calm the sea is, and how clear everything. I declare I
can almost see the coast of France!’ and her bright green
eyes streamed out, and shot into the night as if they could
see through it.
‘Do you know what I intend to do one morning?’ she said;
‘I find I can swim beautifully, and some day, when my Aunt
Crawley’s companion—old Briggs, you know—you remem-
ber her—that hook-nosed woman, with the long wisps of
hair—when Briggs goes out to bathe, I intend to dive under
her awning, and insist on a reconciliation in the water. Isn’t
that a stratagem?’
George burst out laughing at the idea of this aquatic
meeting. ‘What’s the row there, you two?’ Rawdon shouted
out, rattling the box. Amelia was making a fool of herself in
an absurd hysterical manner, and retired to her own room
to whimper in private.
Our history is destined in this chapter to go backwards
and forwards in a very irresolute manner seemingly, and
having conducted our story to to-morrow presently, we shall
immediately again have occasion to step back to yesterday,
so that the whole of the tale may get a hearing. As you be-

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