“It is delightful:  oh, I am sure Wenna will enjoy it,” Mabyn said.  “But don’t you think, Mr. Trelyon, that you might ask her to sit here?  One sees better here than sitting sideways in a wagonette.”

“They have their business-affairs to settle.”

“Yes,” said Mabyn petulantly, “that is what every one says:  nobody expects Wenna ever to have a moment’s enjoyment to herself.  Oh, here is old Uncle Cornish—­he’s a great friend of Wenna’s:  he will be dreadfully hurt if she passes him without saying a word.”

“Then we shall pull up and address Uncle Cornish.  I believe he used to be the most thieving old ruffian of a poacher in this county.”

There was a hale old man of seventy or so seated on a low wall in front of one of the gardens, his face shaded from the sunlight by a broad hat, his lean gray hands employed in buckling up the leathern leggings that encased his spare calves.  He got up when the horses stopped, and looked in rather a dazed fashion at the carriage.

“How do you do this morning, Mr. Cornish?” Wenna said.

“Why, now, to be sure!” the old man said, as if reproaching his own imperfect vision. “‘Tis a fine marnin’, Miss Wenna, and yue be agwoin’ for a drive.”

“And how is your daughter-in-law, Mr. Cornish?  Has she sold the pig yet?”

“Naw, she hasn’t sold the peg.  If yue be agwoin’ thrue Trevalga, Miss Wenna, just yue stop and have a look at that peg:  yue’ll be ’mazed to see en.  ’Tis many a year agone sence there has been such a peg by me.  And perhaps yue’d take the laste bit o’ refrashment, Miss Wenna, as yue go by:  Jane would get yue a coop o’ tay to once.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cornish, I’ll look in and see the pig some other time:  to-day we sha’n’t be going as far as Trevalga.”

“Oh, won’t you?” said Master Harry in a low voice as he drove on.  “You’ll be in Trevalga before you know where you are.”

Which was literally the case.  Wenna was so much engaged in her talk with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away they were getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion knew.  They were now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful banks, which were starred with primroses and stitchwort and red dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and tender-hued firstlings of the year.  The sun was warm on the hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze blew about these lofty heights, and stirred Mabyn’s splendid masses of hair as they drove rapidly along.  Far over on their right, beyond the majestic wall of cliff, lay the great blue plain of the sea; and there stood the bold brown masses of the Sisters Rocks, with a circle of white foam round their base.  As they looked down into the south the white light was so fierce that they could but faintly discern objects through it; but here and there they caught a glimpse of a square church-tower or of a few rude cottages clustered on the high plain, and these seemed to be of a transparent gray in the blinding glare of the sun.