her birthplace. But, for some reason or other, she did not share her
hero's rather petulant anxiety to keep the curtain nailed down on that
part of her life which preceded her entry into the ranks of the Royal
Marines. Some might have thought that those fair large blue eyes of hers
wandered now and then in pleasant unambitious walks behind the curtain,
and toyed with little flowers of palest memory. Utterly tasteless,
totally wanting in discernment, not to say gratitude, the Major could not
presume her to be; and yet his wits perceived that her answers and the
conduct she shaped in accordance with his repeated protests and long-
reaching apprehensions of what he called danger, betrayed acquiescent
obedience more than the connubial sympathy due to him. Danger on the
field the Major knew not of; he did not scruple to name the word in
relation to his wife. For, as he told her, should he, some day, as in
the chapter of accidents might occur, sally into the street a Knight
Companion of the Bath and become known to men as Sir Maxwell Strike, it
would be decidedly disagreeable for him to be blown upon by a wind from
Lymport. Moreover she was the mother of a son. The Major pointed out to
her the duty she owed her offspring. Certainly the protecting aegis of
his rank and title would be over the lad, but she might depend upon it
any indiscretion of hers would damage him in his future career, the Major
assured her. Young Maxwell must be considered.

For all this, the mother and wife, when the black letter found them in
the morning at breakfast, had burst into a fit of grief, and faltered
that she wept for a father. Mrs. Andrew, to whom the letter was
addressed, had simply held the letter to her in a trembling hand. The
Major compared their behaviour, with marked encomiums of Mrs. Andrew.
Now this lady and her husband were in obverse relative positions. The
brewer had no will but his Harriet's. His esteem for her combined the
constitutional feelings of an insignificantly-built little man for a