For some moments longer he watched the broadening daylight, till the sun, mounting above the cliff, blazed on the watch he had again pulled out and now shut with a brisk snap.  His round, shaven face, still boyish in middle age, wore the shadow of a solemn responsibility.  He clambered out into the small boat astern, and, casting loose, pulled towards a bright patch of colour in the grey shore wall:  a blue quay-door overhung with ivy.  The upper windows of the cottage behind it were draped with snowy muslin, and its walls, coated with recent whitewash, shamed its neighbours to right and left.

As the boat dropped under this blue quay-door, its upper flap opened softly, and a voice as softly said—­

“Thank you kindly, John.  And how d’ye do this May morning?”

“Charming,” the man answered frankly.  “Handsome weather ’tis, to be sure.”

He looked up and smiled at her, like a lover.

“I needn’t to ask how you be; for you’m looking sweet as blossom,” he went on.

And yet the woman that smiled down on him was fifty years old at least.  Her hair, which usually lay in two flat bands, closely drawn over the temples, had for this occasion been worked into waves by curling-papers, and twisted in front of either ear, into that particular ringlet locally called a kiss-me-quick.  But it was streaked with grey, and the pinched features wore the tint of pale ivory.

“D’ye think you can clamber down the ladder, Sarah?  The tide’s fairly high.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be showing my ankles.”

“I was hoping so.  Wunnerful ankles you’ve a-got, Sarah, and a wunnerful cage o’ teeth.  Such extremities ’d well beseem a king’s daughter, all glorious within!”

Sarah Blewitt pulled open the lower flap of the door and set her foot on the ladder.  She wore a white print gown beneath her cloak, and a small bonnet of black straw decorated with sham cowslips.  The cloak, hitching for a moment on the ladder’s side, revealed a beaded reticule that hung from her waist, and clinked as she descended.

“I reckon there’s scarce an inch of paint left on my front door,” she observed, as the man steadied her with an arm round her waist, and settled her comfortably in the stern-sheets.

He unshipped his oars and began to pull.

“Ay.  I heard ’em whackin’ the door with a deal o’ tow-row.  They was going it like billy-O when I came past the Town Quay.  But one mustn’ complain, May-mornin’s.”

“I wasn’ complaining,” said the woman; “I was just remarking.  How’s Maria?”

“She’s nicely, thank you.”

“And the children?”

“Brave.”

“I’ve put up sixpennyworth of nicey in four packets—­that’s one apiece—­and I’ve written the name on each, for you to take home to ’em.”

She fumbled in her reticule and produced the packets.  The peppermint-drops and brandy-balls were wrapped in clean white paper, and the names written in a thin Italian hand.  John thanked her and stowed them in his trousers pockets.