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So De Châteaunéant carried the day. Old Budlong walked in advance, inquiring the way, while his wife and daughter followed, making a cheerful glare of ankles through the muddy streets.

“Isn’t it delightful to be ashore?” remarked Miss Arabella to Auguste Henri.

“Yese, mees. I am mose pleese to be out of ze ice-bugs. Ah, mademoiselle,”—as Arabella made a lofty lift over a puddle,—“vous avez le pied d’une sylphide.”

Mr. Waddy and his companions soon exhausted the town. They lunched substantially on land fare, and having still time, went to drive, Dunstan and Paulding in one drag, Mr. Waddy and Tim in another. The first signal-gun recalled them. The two friends, whose steed was a comparative Bucephalus to the others’ Rosinante, drew rapidly out of sight. The rear coachman was flogging his beast into a clumsy canter, when just as they passed a little jetty near some fishing-huts, they saw a child fall from the end into deep water.

“We can’t let the child drown,” said Mr. Waddy, stopping the coachman.