the voyager who found his ship drawn to the Loadstone Mountain had not time to think of the land he had left. Perhaps the most noble tribute to the past of late years is the Eleanor Cross, put up in front of Charing Cross railway terminus. It shows that even in these days England's greatest king save one is not wholly forgotten; that even railway directors can understand the feeling which caused him to build a cross wheresoever his dead queen rested between Lincoln and the minster of the west. Perchance, if Peter l'Imagineur could stand before the cross in the railway yard, he would feel no paternal affection for Mr. Scott's design; but the poetic idea is there, all the same. The week passed. The Jessy flashed her white sail back to Guernsey, and Lily Le Lacheur came merrily in to Madame Gilet's after her pleasant outing. The girl with the aureate hair was a little embrowned by the sun, like some pale flower that has been taken from greenhouse to garden. But she was riante, and her comrades were a little envious, and there was some sharp interchange of words at supper-time. 66 Children, don't be foolish," said Madame Gilet, hobbling in from her private room. "Mademoiselle has had a little holiday. You will all get your holidays in turn." Achille Gilet came to Marshall's at the end of the week, and announced that he was ready to start. He felt sure that, the weather being calm, he could steer to any point. The weather was deliciously calm. Nugent took a map and carefully indicated to him where he should drop. The point was Silchester. "Do you think of going alone?" asked Nugent. "I did. Some of my friends wanted to go with me, but I waited for decision." your I "Well, you see, what I want you to do for me in England will require assistance. should like you to take Miss Le Lacheur with you; she is a clever girl, and would be of great use. You can easily persuade Madame Gilet. Only, as petticoats are in the way in a balloon, you must put her in boy's apparel." "Surely she will object," said Achille Gilet. "I don't think so," said Nugent, drily. Neither did she object, nor Madame Gilet. 66 Early one morning, with help of many friends, boyish sympathizers in his adventurous science, the balloon was launchedAchille and the pretty page" on board. Calmly it rose into ether and by degrees became a bubble in the luminous blue, and then a mere dot, vanishing as you gazed. Stand by a beehive when limes and furze are in bloom-when kissing is in season-and try how far you can watch the flight of a bee. Take a homing pigeon a mile away from home, and see how long it is after he leaves your hand before he becomes invisible. Follow with your eye a friend in London streets, and note how soon he is absorbed into the immeasurable crowd. Think of the friend of your boyhood who may have gone into a higher level of life or a lower level, but whom you have not known for twenty or thirty years. What labour it would cost you to find him now! And how sorry he would be to see you! The balloon started. So did the Jessy. Nugent felt that on this occasion it was requisite to be extremely careful, for he knew that English magistrates and police, though they bark more than they bite, are apt to bite hard when they do bite. So, instead of running in at Mount St. Nicholas, he took refuge in the. little fishing village of Ellicombe, a few miles further up the coast. CHAPTER XVII. A THE ELECTION. "Happy the man whose fate Where quite unknown the tribe Of scoundrels who intimidate and bribe- For highest place the man of highest mind— And even Genius deigns to serve the Throne." LOVELY day dawned upon Silchester election. At the earliest hour imaginable the unlucky village was reft of its sleep by a concourse of all the untameable brass bands within a dozen miles. In that remote Devon district the election was an event: it would be a kind of Hegira: Sally would say to Bessy, |