“Very true, George, but you wisely spoke of small doses. I am not sure that it would be safe to tell Monsieur Laronde that we have actually found his wife and child. He also is too weak to bear much agitation.”

“Not so weak as you think, mother, though the sufferings of slave-life and subsequent anxiety have brought him very near to the grave. But I will break it to him judiciously. We will get my dear little Hester to do it.”

“Your Hester!” exclaimed Mrs Foster, in surprise. “I trust, George, that you, a mere midshipman, have not dared to speak to that child of—”

“Make your mind easy, mother,” replied the middy, with a laugh, “I have not said a word. Haven’t required to. We have both spoken to each other with our eyes, and that is quite enough at present. I feel as sure of my little Hester as if we were fairly spliced. There goes the breakfast-bell. Will you be down soon?”

“No. I am too happy to-day to be able to eat in public, George. Send it up to me.”

The breakfast-room in that seaside villa presented an interesting company, for the fugitives had stuck together with feelings of powerful sympathy since they had landed in England. Hugh Sommers was there, but it was not easy to recognise in the fine, massive, genial gentleman, in a shooting suit of grey, the ragged, wretched slave who, not long before, had struggled like a tiger with the janissaries on the walls of Algiers. And Hester was there, of course, with her sunny hair and sunny looks and general aspect of human sunniness all over, as unlike to the veiled and timid Moorish lady, or the little thin-nosed negress, as chalk is to cheese! Edouard Laronde was also there, and he, like the others, had undergone wonderful transformation in the matter of clothing, but he had also changed in body, for a severe illness had seized him when he landed, and it required all Mrs Foster’s careful nursing to “pull him through,” as the middy styled it. Brown the sailor was also there, for, being a pleasant as well as a sharp man, young Foster resolved to get him into the Navy, and, if possible, into the same ship with himself. Meanwhile he retained him to assist in the search for Marie Laronde and her daughter. Last, but by no means least, Peter the Great was there—not as one of the breakfast party, but as a waiter.

Peter had from the first positively refused to sit down to meals in a dining-party room!

“No, Geo’ge,” he said, when our middy proposed it to him, on the occasion of their arrival at his mother’s home—“No, Geo’ge. I won’t do it. Das flat! I’s not bin used to it. My proper speer is de kitchen. Besides, do you t’ink I’d forsake my Angelica an’ leabe her to feed alone downstairs, w’ile her husband was a-gorgin’ of his-self above? Neber! It’s no use for you, Geo’ge, to say you’d be happy to see her too, for she wouldn’t do it, an’ she’s as obsnit as me—an’ more! Now you make your mind easy, I’ll be your mudder’s black flunkey—for lub, not for munny. So you hole your tongue, Geo’ge!”

Thus the arrangement came to be made—at least for a time.

The middy was unusually grave that morning as he sat down to breakfast. They were all aware that he had returned from London late the previous night, and were more or less eager to know the result of his visit, but on observing his gravity they forbore to ask questions. Only the poor Frenchman ventured to say sadly, “Failed again, I see.”

“Not absolutely,” said Foster, who was anxious that the invalid should not have his breakfast spoilt by being excited. “The visit I paid to the solicitor did indeed turn out a failure, but—but I have still strong hopes,” he added cheerily.

“So hab I, Geo’ge,” remarked Peter the Great, from behind the chair of Miss Sommers, who presided at the breakfast table, for although Peter had resigned his right to equality as to feeding, he by no means gave up his claim to that of social intercourse.

“Come, Laronde. Cheer up, my friend,” said Hugh Sommers heartily; “I feel sure that we’ll manage it amongst us, for we have all entered on the search heart and soul.”

“Right you are, sir,” ejaculated Brown, through a mouthful of buttered toast.

“It only requires patience,” said the middy, “for London is a big place, you know, and can’t be gone over in a week or two.”

“Das so, Geo’ge,” said Peter, nodding approval.

After breakfast Foster sought a private interview with Hester, who undertook, with much fear, to communicate the news to Laronde.

“You see, I think it will come best from you, Hester,” said George in a grave fatherly manner, “because a woman always does these sort of things better than a man, and besides, poor Laronde is uncommonly fond of you, as—”

He was going to have said “as everybody is,” but, with much sagacity, he stopped short and sneezed instead. He felt that a commonplace cough from a man with a sound chest would inevitably have betrayed him—so he sneezed. “A hyperkrite as usual!” he thought, and continued aloud—

“So, you see, Hester, it is very important that you should undertake it, and it will be very kind of you, too.”

“I would gladly undertake a great deal more than that for the poor man,” said Hester earnestly. “When must I do it?”

“Now—at once. The sooner the better. He usually goes to the bower at the foot of the garden after breakfast.”

Without a word, but with a glance that spoke volumes, the maiden ran to the bower.

What she said to the Frenchman we need not write down in detail. It is sufficient to note the result. In the course of a short time after she had entered the bower, a loud shout was heard, and next moment Laronde was seen rushing towards the house with a flushed countenance and the vigour of an athlete!

“My little girl has been too precipitate, I fear,” remarked Hugh Sommers to the middy.

“Your little girl is never ‘too’—anything!” replied the middy to Hugh, with much gravity.

The ex-Bagnio slave smiled, but whether at the reply or at the rushing Frenchman we cannot tell.

When Laronde reached his room he found Peter the Great there, on his knees, packing a small valise.

“Hallo! Peter, what are you doing? I want that.”

“Yes, Eddard, I know dat. Das why I’s packin’.”

“You’re a good fellow, Peter, a true friend, but let me do it; I’m in terrible haste!”

“No, sar, you’s not in haste. Dere’s lots ob time.” (He pulled out a watch of the warming-pan type and consulted it.) “De coach don’t start till one o’clock; it’s now eleben; so dere’s no hurry. You jest lie down on de bed an’ I’ll pack de bag.”

Instead of lying down the poor Frenchman fell on his knees beside the bed and laid his face in his hands.

“Yes—das better. Dere’s some sense in dat,” muttered the negro as he quietly continued to pack the valise.

Two hours later and Laronde was dashing across country as fast as four good horses could take him, with George Foster on one side, Peter the Great on the other, and Brown on the box-seat—the fo’c’sl, he called it—beside the red-coated driver.

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