way, was very fine and rather suggestive of a Turner picture.

"Dear old Sol!" said Francesca, shading her eyes as she looked at
the dazzle of glory--"His mission is to sustain life,--and the
object of that war-vessel bathed in all his golden rays is to
destroy it. What unscrupulous villains men are! Why cannot nations
resolve on peace and amity, and if differences arise agree to settle
them by arbitration? It's such a pagan and brutal thing to kill
thousands of innocent men just because Governments quarrel."

"I entirely agree with you,"--I said--"All the same I don't approve
of Governments that preach peace while they drain the people's
pockets for the purpose of increasing armaments, after the German
fashion. Let us be ready with adequate defences,--but it's surely
very foolish to cripple our nation at home by way of preparation for
wars which may never happen."

"And yet they MAY happen!" said Francesca, her eyes still dreamily
watching the sunlit heavens--"Everything in the Universe is engaged
in some sort of a fight, so it seems to me. The tiniest insects are
for ever combating each other. In the very channels of our own blood
the poisonous and non-poisonous germs are constantly striving for
the mastery, and how can we escape the general ordainment? Life
itself is a continual battle between good and evil, and if it were
not so we should have no object in living. The whole business is
evidently intended to be a dose conflict to the end."

"There is no end!" I said.

She looked at me almost compassionately.