“To Penzance?” said he with a sudden falling of the face.

“Yes.  She has been dreadfully out of sorts lately, and she has sunk into a kind of despondent state.  The doctor says she must have a change—­a holiday, really—­to take her away from the cares of the house—­”

“Why, Wenna, it’s you who want the holiday—­it’s you who have the cares of the house,” Trelyon said warmly.

“And so I have persuaded her to go to Penzance for a week or two, and I go with her to look after her.  Mr. Trelyon, would you be kind enough to keep Rock for me until we come back?  I am afraid of the servants neglecting him.”

“You needn’t be afraid of that:  he’s not one of the ill-favored—­every one will attend to him,” said Trelyon; and then he added, after a minute or two of silence, “The fact is, I think I shall be at Penzance also while you are there.  My cousin Juliott is coming here in about a fortnight to celebrate the important event of my coming of age, and I promised to go for her.  I might as well go now.”

She said nothing.

“I might as well go any time,” he said rather impatiently.  “I haven’t got anything to do.  Do you know, before you came along just now, I was thinking what a very useful person you were in the world, and what a very useless person I was—­about as useless as this little cur.  I think somebody should take me up and heave me into a river.  And I was wondering, too”—­here he became a little more embarrassed and slow of speech—­“I was wondering what you would say if I spoke to you, and gave you a hint that sometimes—­that sometimes one might wish to cut this lazy life if one only knew how, and whether so very busy a person as yourself mightn’t—­don’t you see?—­give one some notion—­some sort of hint, in fact—­”

“Oh, but then, Mr. Trelyon,” she said quite cheerfully, “you would think it very strange if I asked you to take any interest in the things that keep me busy.  That is not a man’s work.  I wouldn’t accept you as a pupil.”

He burst out laughing.  “Why,” said he, “do you think I offered to mend stockings and set sums on slates and coddle babies?”

“As for setting sums on slates,” she remarked with a quiet impertinence, “the working of them out might be of use to you.”

“Yes, and a serious trouble too,” he said candidly.  “No, no—­that cottage business ain’t in my line.  I like to have a joke with the old folks or a romp with the kids, but I can’t go in for cutting out pinafores.  I shall leave my mother to do my share of that for me; and hasn’t she come out strong lately, eh?  It’s quite a new amusement for her, and it’s driven a deal of that organ-grinding and stuff out of her head; and I’ve a notion some o’ those parsons—­”

He stopped short, remembering who his companion was; and at this moment they came to a gate which opened out on the highway, through which the small cur was passed to find his way home.