"You bring some coals," said Selina briefly, without any palaver
or pro-and-con discussion. "Here's a basket. I'LL manage the
faggots!"

In a very few minutes there was little doubt about its being a
genuine bonfire and no paltry makeshift. Selina, a Maenad now,
hatless and tossing disordered locks, all the dross of the young
lady purged out of her, stalked around the pyre of her own
purloining, or prodded it with a pea-stick. And as she prodded
she murmured at intervals, "I KNEW there was something we
could do! It isn't much--but still it's SOMETHING!"

The gardener had gone home to his tea. Aunt Eliza had driven out
for hers a long way off, and was not expected back till quite
late; and this far end of the garden was not overlooked by any
windows. So the Tribute blazed on merrily unchecked. Villagers
far away, catching sight of the flare, muttered something about
"them young devils at their tricks again," and trudged on beer-
wards. Never a thought of what day it was, never a thought for
Nelson, who preserved their honest pint-pots, to be paid for in
honest pence, and saved them from litres and decimal coinage.
Nearer at hand, frightened rabbits popped up and vanished with a
flick of white tails; scared birds fluttered among the
branches, or sped across the glade to quieter sleeping-quarters;
but never a bird nor a beast gave a thought to the hero to whom
they owed it that each year their little homes of horsehair,
wool, or moss, were safe stablished 'neath the flap of the
British flag; and that Game Laws, quietly permanent, made la
chasse a terror only to their betters. No one seemed to know,
nor to care, nor to sympathise. In all the ecstasy of her burnt-