done;" and she kissed both their foreheads.

"I think, Mrs. Hargreaves," said Dick, with the demure impudence of a
midshipman, "that that ought to go round."

"I think you have fairly earned it, you impudent boy," Mrs. Hargreaves
said, smiling.

Mrs. Righton kissed Dick tearfully, for she was thinking that, had the
battery been silenced only one day earlier, her little one would have been
saved. Edith glanced at her mother, and allowed Dick to kiss her; while
Nelly threw her arms round his neck and kissed him heartily, telling him
he was a darling boy.

Ned, who possessed none of the impudence of his brother, and who was
moreover at the age when many boys become bashful with women, contented
himself with shaking hands with Mrs. Righton and Edith, and would have
done the same with Nelly, but that young lady put up her cheek with a
laugh.

"I choose to be kissed, sir," she said; "it is not much kissing that we
get here, goodness knows."




CHAPTER XVI.

A SORTIE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.