baron watching them until they reached her and the boat was drawn up to
its davits, when he turned and drove back to the château, wondering
greatly how the baroness would bear the loss of her baby, and fearing a
very bad quarter of an hour was in store for him when she learnt what
had become of it.

A stiff breeze was blowing, but with wind and tide in her favour the
yacht sailed smoothly across the Channel, all on board her, except the
baby, being too inured to the sea to feel ill, and, luckily, the
movement of the yacht seemed to lull the child to sleep. When she woke
Pierre was always at hand with some milk, so that she was scarcely heard
to cry during the whole passage, spending the time in sleeping and
eating, and thereby enabling Pierre to earn for himself the character of
a first-rate nurse.

From time to time during the next day Léon came into the cabin to look
at his tiny charge, for whom an impromptu cradle had been made with some
pillows in an easy chair, and who seemed to have the happy knack of
adapting herself to circumstances, for she slept quietly on, with a
smile on her little face, all unconscious of the waves from which a few
planks divided her.

"Poor little mite; I hope they'll be kind to her, Smith, these friends
of yours. I am half sorry I brought her, though the baron wished it,"
said Léon, as he left the cabin; but the next moment he was whistling on
deck as though no such thing as the baby existed.

Towards evening they came in sight of Brighton, whose long sea front,
even in those distant days, stretched for a mile or two along the coast,
and Léon, who knew the town well, and considered it one of the few