protoplasm is rarely to be tracked down. Selina had never so
much as seen the sea; but for that matter neither had I ever
set foot on the American continent, the by-ways of which I knew
so intimately. And just as I, if set down without warning in the
middle of the Rocky Mountains, would have been perfectly at home,
so Selina, if a genie had dropped her suddenly on Portsmouth
Hard, could have given points to most of its frequenters. From
the days of Blake down to the death of Nelson (she never
condescended further) Selina had taken spiritual part in every
notable engagement of the British Navy; and even in the dark days
when she had to pick up skirts and flee, chased by an ungallant
De Ruyter or Van Tromp, she was yet cheerful in the consciousness
that ere long she would be gleefully hammering the fleets of the
world, in the glorious times to follow. When that golden period
arrived, Selina was busy indeed; and, while loving best to stand
where the splinters were flying the thickest. she was also a
careful and critical student of seamanship and of manoeuvre. She
knew the order in which the great line-of-battle ships moved into
action, the vessels they respectively engaged, the moment when
each let go its anchor, and which of them had a spring on its
cable (while not understanding the phrase, she carefully noted
the fact); and she habitually went into an engagement on the
quarter-deck of the gallant ship that reserved its fire the
longest.

At the time of Selina's weird seizure I was unfortunately away
from home, on a loathsome visit to an aunt; and my account is
therefore feebly compounded from hearsay. It was an absence I
never ceased to regret--scoring it up, with a sense of injury,
against the aunt. There was a splendid uselessness about the