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Doctor, may I trouble you for the blue worsted? After you with the thimble, if you please." Ha, ha, ha, ha!'
    'I dare say they can cook,' said Diana. 'Men can broil a steak; and there are always eggs and bread-and-butter.'
    'But how wonderfully strange,' cried Cecilia. 'How romantic! As good as a ruin. Oh, how I long to see 'em.'

CHAPTER TWO
    The acquaintance was not slow in coming. With naval promptness Admiral Haddock invited the ladies of Mapes to dine with the newcomers, and presently Captain Aubrey and Dr Maturin were asked to dinner at Mapes; they were pronounced excellent young men, most agreeable company, perfectly well-bred, and a great addition to the neighbourhood. It was clear to Sophia, however, that poor Dr Maturin needed feeding properly: 'he was quite pale and silent,' she said. But even the tenderest heart, the most given to pity, could not have said the same for Jack. He was in great form from even the beginning of the party, when his laugh was to be heard coming up the drive, until the last repeated farewells under the freezing portico. His fine open battle-scarred countenance had worn either a smile or a look of lively pleasure from the first to the last, and although his blue eye had dwelt a little wistfully upon the stationary decanter and the disappearing remains of the pudding, his cheerful flow of small but perfectly amiable talk had never faltered. He had eaten everything set before him with grateful voracity, and even Mrs Williams felt something like an affectionate leaning towards him.
    'Well,' she said, as their hoof-beats died away in the night, 'I believe that was as successful a dinner-party as I have ever given. Captain Aubrey managed a second partridge - but then they were so very tender. And the floating island looked particularly well in the silver bowl: there will be enough for tomorrow. And the rest of the pork will be delicious, hashed. How well they ate, to be sure: I do not suppose they often have a dinner like that. I wonder at the admiral, saying that Captain Aubrey was not quite the thing. I think he is very much the thing. Sophie, my love, pray tell John to put the port the gentlemen left into a small bottle at once, before he locks up: it is bad for the decanter to leave port-wine in it.'
    'Yes, Mama.'
    'Now, my dears,' whispered Mrs Williams, having left a significant pause after the closing of the door, 'I dare say you all noticed Captain Aubrey's great interest in Sophia -he was quite particular. I have little doubt that - I think it would be very nice if we were all to leave them alone together as much as possible. Are you attending, Diana?'
    'Oh, yes, ma'am. I understand you perfectly well,' said Diana, turning back from the window.
    Far over in the moonlit night the pale road wound between Polcary and Beacon Down, and the horsemen were walking briskly up it.
    'I wonder, I wonder,' said Jack, 'whether there is any goose left at home, or whether those infernal brutes have eaten it up. At all events, we can have an omelette and a bottle of claret. Claret. Have you ever known a woman that had any notion of wine?'
    'I have not.'
    'And damned near with the pudding, too. But what charming girls they are! Did you notice the eldest one, Miss Williams, holding up her wine-glass and looking at the candle through it? Such grace... The taper of her wrist and hand - long, long fingers.' Stephen Maturin was scratching himself with a dogged perseverance; he was not attending. But Jack went on, 'And that Mrs Villiers, how beautifully she held her head: lovely colouring. Perhaps not such a perfect complexion as her cousin - she has been in India, I believe - but what deep blue eyes! How old would she be, Stephen?'
    'Not thirty.'
    'I remember how well she sat her horse... By God, a year or two back I should have -. How a man changes. But even so, I do love being surrounded by girls - so very different from men. She said several handsome things about the service - spoke very sensibly -