At the end of the time agreed upon Ralph returned home.

“And so, Ralph, you have found it better than you expected?” his mother said to him at the conclusion of his first meal at home.

“Much better, mother.  Mr. Penfold is awfully kind, and lets one do just what one likes.  His sisters are hateful women, and if I had not been staying in the house I should certainly have played them some trick or other just to pay them out.  I wonder why they disliked me so much.  I could see it directly I arrived; but, after all, it didn’t matter much, except just at meals and in the evening.  But though Mr. Penfold was so kind, it would have been very stupid if it had not been for Mabel Withers.  We used to ride out or go for walks together every day.  She was a capital walker, and very jolly—­almost as good as a boy.  She said several times that she wished she had been a boy, and I wished so too.  Still, of course, mother, I am very glad I am back.  There is no place like home, you know; and then there are the fellows at school, and the games, and the sea, and all sorts of things; and it’s a horrid nuisance to think that I have got to go down there regularly for my holidays.  Still, of course, as you wish it, I will do so; and now that I know what it is like it won’t be so bad another time.  Anyhow, I am glad I have got another ten days before school begins.”

The following morning Ralph went down to the beach.  “Why, Master Conway,” an old fisherman said, “you are a downright stranger.  I have missed you rarely.”

“I told you I was going away, Joe, and that I shouldn’t get back until the holidays were nearly over.”

“I know you did,” the fisherman replied.  “Still it does seem strange without you.  Every time as I goes out I says to Bill if Master Conway was at home he would be with us to-day, Bill.  It don’t seem no ways natural without him.’  And there’s been good fishing, too, this season, first rate; and the weather has been just what it should be.”

“Well, I am back now, Joe, anyhow; and I have got ten days before school begins again, and I mean to make the most of it.  Are you going out to-day?”

“At four o’clock,” the fisherman said.  “Daylight fishing ain’t much good just now; we take twice as many at night.”

“No trouble with the Frenchies?”

“Lord bless you I ain’t seen a French sail for months.  Our cruisers are too sharp for them; though they say a good many privateers run in and out of their ports in spite of all we can do, and a lot of our ships get snapped up.  But we don’t trouble about them.  Why, bless your heart, if one of them was to run across us they would only just take our fish, and as likely as not pay us for them with a cask or two of spirits.  Fish is a treat to them Frenchies; for their fishing boats have to keep so close over to their own shores that they can’t take much.  Besides, all their best fishermen are away in the privateers, and the lads have to go to fight Boney’s battles with the Austrians or Russians, or Spanish or our chaps, or else to go on board their ships of war and spend all their time cooped up in harbor, for they scarce show now beyond the range of the guns in their forts.  Well, will you come this evening?”