"Me and Molly went up to the rooms and did what you told me I'd have to do to- morrow, as soon as ever Mr and Mrs Strong came, mum; so now they're quite ready.

Molly, too, went back afterwards to her kitchen, and is warming up the curry, in case you should like it hot for supper." "You've done quite right, Sarah, and just as I would have directed if I'd been at home.

Tell Molly from me, that there is nothing my brother is fonder of than curry; and that she may send up supper as soon as she's got it ready." Sarah hurried off to quicken the preparations of her fellow-servant below, her movements somewhat accelerated by Bob shouting out the cruel refrain of the "forget-me-not poem!" "Ah, but," put in the Captain, "the `good Sarah' did not forget her head this time, at any rate! You'll have to alter your poem, Master Bob!" Then, of course, ensued a lot of explanations, which led up to an account of the picnic, the elaborate description of which Nellie had taken such pains to write in her letter home to her mother.
All of which pains, alas! were thrown away; for here was her mother by her side, while her graphic letter was lying uselessly in the box at the post-office! A series of questions and answers then followed rapidly in reference to Bob and Miss Nell's doings since they had been down by the sea; interspersed with sundry inquiries after Blinkie, the old dissipated jackdaw left behind at home, and Snuffles, the black cat, who was a martyr to chronic influenza, whence his very appropriate name! Rover, who was wild with delight on seeing his old master and mistress when he came in damp and dripping from his experiences of the wreck, was not altogether forgotten, you may be sure, just because London friends were thought of! On the contrary, he received many pats and caresses besides getting an unexpected supper; a thing not generally in Rover's line, but which, none the less, did not seem to come amiss to him on the present occasion.
By this time, it was very late, the "tattoo" having sounded long since, summoning all truant soldiers into barracks; so, the Captain, declaring that his landlady would "haul him over the coals" for stopping out so late, stumped away chuckling down the parade with his malacca cane.
The exhausted household at "the Moorings" then went to bed in peace, tired out with their day's doings--tired even of talk--Bob and Nell composing in their dreams a fresh version, as the old sailor had humorously suggested, of Sarah's celebrated picnic poem; in which, instead of their original quatrain, "bed" now rhymed with "head," in lieu of the unfortunately forgotten "bread," and "curry" with "hurry!" The next day, both Mr and Mrs Dugald Strong said that they were too fatigued to do anything else save lie in the sun and bask on the beach; but the following morning, the Captain, insisting on their seeing the sights of the place, took them all down to the harbour, when they went on board the _Victory_, Nelson's old flagship, which Mrs Gilmour said she had been over "at laste a hundred times before," although she accompanied them now "for company's sake, sure!" If a hackneyed theme to her, this visit to the historic vessel was, however, replete with interest to the others; being full of floating memories of the past, in which the grand figure of the hero of Trafalgar stood out in relief with that wonderfully blood-stirring last signal of his, like a laurel wreath encircling his brows-- "England expects every man this day to do his duty!" To Bob and Nellie it was especially delightful to see the real ship in which Nelson had fought so gallantly that battle of which they had read, knowing, by heart almost, the principal incidents of the glorious day, when the British fleet "crumpled up the combined squadrons of France and Spain"; and, with the able assistance of the Captain, who made an admirable cicerone, they could, standing there on board the _Victory_, imagine themselves in the thick of the celebrated sea-fight.

Aye, boarding the _Santissima Trinidada_, with the guns banging about them and the sulphurous gunpowder-smoke filling the air around, hiding everything beyond the ponderous hulls of the enemy's three-deckers between which, yard-arm to yard-arm, the old _Victory_ lay! "Here it was," said the Captain, pointing out the spot on the quarter- deck below the poop, close to a hatchway, and marked by a copper plate let into the planking, bearing a short inscription commemorating the fact, "that Nelson was standing when that villainous marksman in the _Redoutable's_ mizzen-top hit him, catching sight of the medals on his breast; for, he would stick 'em on, in spite of the advice of Hardy, who was his flag-captain, you know." "That was very foolish of him," interposed Mrs Gilmour.

"I suppose he did it to show off, like most of you men; for you're a consayted lot! The same as you punish your malacca cane, Captain!" "Not a bit of it!" retorted the old sailor indignantly, up in arms at once at the slightest aspersion on his hero's fame.