“And she deserves it,” added Miss Quiney.

“What?  You don’t tell me you manage it all yourself? . . .  This palace of a house!”

“Already you are making it feel less empty to me.  Yes, alone I do it; but if you wish to praise me, you should see my accounts. They are my real pride.  But no, they are too holy to be shown!”

They sat later—­the gentlemen by their wine—­on the stone terrace overlooking the wide champaign.

“But,” said Ruth, for she observed that the boy was restless, “I must leave Tatty to play hostess while I take a scamper with Dick.  There’s a pool below here, Dicky, with oh, such trout!”

Dicky was on his feet in a trice.  “Rods?”

“Rods, if you will.  But there are the stables, too, to be seen; and the gunroom—­”

“Stables?  Gunroom?—­Oh, come along!—­the day is too short!” Here Dicky paused.  “But would you like to come too, sir?” he asked, addressing Mr. Hanmer.

Mrs. Harry laughed.  “Those two,” she told Ruth, “are like master and dog, and one never can be quite sure which is which.”

“My dear boy,” said Mr. Hanmer, “you must surely see that Lady Vyell wants you all to herself.  Yet I dare say the captain and I will be strolling around to the stables before long.”

“Ay, when this decanter is done,” agreed Captain Harry.

“That was rather pretty of you,” said Ruth, as she and the boy went down the terrace stairs together.

“What?—­asking old Hanmer to come with us? . . .  Oh, but he’s the best in the world, and, what’s more, never speaks out of his turn.  He has a tremendous opinion of you, too.”

“Indeed?”

“Worships the very ground you tread on.”

Ruth laughed.  “Were those his words?”

Dicky laughed too.  “Likely they would be!  Fancy old Han talking like a sick schoolgirl!  I made the words up to please you:  but it’s the truth, all the same.”

They reached the pool; and the boy, after ten minutes spent in discovering the biggest monster among the trout and attempting to tickle him with a twig, fell to prodding the turfed brink thoughtfully.

“We talked a deal about you, first-along,” he blurted at length.  “I fancy old Han guessed that I was—­was—­well, fond of you and all that sort of thing.”

“Dear Dicky!”

“Boys are terrible softies at this age,” my young master admitted.  “And, after all, it was rather a knockdown, you know, when papa’s letter came with the news.”

“But we’re friends, eh?—­you and I—­just as before?”

“Oh, of course—­only you might have told. . . .  And I’ve brought you a parrot.  Remember the parrots in that old fellow’s shop in Port Nassau?”

She led him to talk of his sea adventures, of the ship, of the West Indies among which they had been cruising; and as they wandered back from terrace to terrace he poured out a stream of boyish gossip about his shipmates, from Captain Vyell down to the cook’s dog.  Half of it was Hebrew to her; but in every sentence of it, and in the gay, eager voice, she read that the child had unerringly found his vocation; that the sea lent him back to the shore for a romp and a holiday, but that to the sea he belonged.