visibly healthy, happy, and pure-minded. I should like to pause and look
at them a moment longer, for I have always been a little in love with
them myself; I should like to add to the verses of our own dear poet
certain lines of Wordsworth, of Burns, of Byron--but you, dear reader,
will recall them readily, especially if you belong, as I hope you do, to
the great and glorious fraternity of true lovers; if your heart burns
and your pulses leap at mention of a certain name, at sight of a dear
face--

There came a sudden hum of excitement from the crowd.

"Look, look!" cried Susie. "There it is!" and she clapped her glasses to
her eyes again.

Far out against the horizon appeared a smudge of smoke, which grew and
spread until those with glasses could perceive beneath it the low, dark
lines of a man-of-war. It was true then! Some had permitted themselves
to doubt the story spread so industriously by Monsieur Pelletan and his
friend, the notary--the proprietor of the Grand Hôtel Splendide had
counselled scepticism. Now they could doubt no longer, and they drew a
deep breath. A ship of war at Weet-sur-Mer!

Straight toward the beach she steamed, looming larger and ever larger;
then her speed slackened, slackened, until at last she lay rolling
quietly a quarter of a mile off-shore. A shrill piping came over the
water as the crew was mustered amidships and the boarding-stairs
lowered.

"Well, he _must_ be a swell!" said Sue, "or they wouldn't take all that
trouble. There goes the boat."