Lets see if Mr. Everdail wont listen to us about that, now.That might, or might not be true, Sandy reflected; but he maintained a careful guard over expression and speech.
Felipa forgot her contempt for Cairness. She was interested and suddenly aroused herself to show it. "How do you come to be living with the Indians?" she asked. It was rarely her way to arrive at a question indirectly. "Have you married a squaw?"Whilst the war of parties had been raging in England, matters abroad had been rapidly assuming a shape which threatened the tranquillity of all Europe. In France the elements of revolution had been fermenting, and had already burst into open fury with a character which, to observant eyes, appeared to bode inevitably their spread into every surrounding country. At the same time, the sovereigns of these countries, instead of discerning the signs of the times, and taking measures to guard their people from the contagious influence, were some of them acting so as certainly to invite the specious anarchy. In others, they were wasting their strength on schemes of conquest which only too much enfeebled them for opposition to the dangers thus preparing. Some of these warlike movements seem, at first sight, to have little connection with the history of England, but, more or less, they all are necessary to our comprehension of our own position in the time of those marvellous subversions which were at hand.THE PALACE OF THE TUILERIES, PARIS.Spain having now, most fatally for herself, been persuaded to join France in the war with England, turned her first attention to Gibraltar which she hoped France would enable her to conquer. But France showed no disposition to assist her to regain Gibraltar. At the same time, the great object was to accomplish the union of the French and Spanish fleets, which they deemed must then be invincible, and not only drive the English from the seas, but enable them to land in England itself. The French managed to muster fifty thousand men, whom they marched to the different ports on the Channel, from Havre to St. Malo. By this means, keeping England in fear of an invasion, their fleet slipped out of Brest on the 3rd of June, under the command of D'Orvilliers, and effected the desired junction with the Spaniards at Cadiz. The French fleet consisted of thirty sail of the line; the Spanish, of thirty-eight; making the united fleet sixty-eight sail, besides numerous frigates and smaller vessels. Never, since the days of the Armada, had such a mighty squadron threatened the shores of Great Britain.
