“People like your writings in the Bridport Gazette,” declared Daniel.  “Can you give me a few minutes, Uncle Ernest?  I won’t keep you.”

“My time is always at the service of Henry Ironsyde’s boys,” answered the other, “and nothing that I can do for you, or Raymond, is a trouble.”

“Thank you.  I’m grateful.  It is about Raymond, as a matter of fact.”

“Ah, I’m not altogether surprised.  Come into the study.”

Mr. Churchouse, carrying his new book, led the way and soon he heard of the younger man’s anxieties.  But the bookworm increased rather than allayed them.

“Do you see anything of Raymond?” began Daniel.

“A great deal of him.  He often comes to supper.  But I will be frank.  He does not patronise my simple board for what he can get there, nor does he find my company very exciting.  He wouldn’t.  The attraction, I’m afraid, is my housekeeper’s daughter, Sabina.  Sabina, I may tell you, is a very attractive girl, Daniel.  It has been my pleasure during her youth to assist at her education, and she is well informed and naturally clever.  She is inclined to be excitable, as many clever people are, but she is of a charming disposition and has great natural ability.  I had thought she would very likely become a schoolmistress; but in this place the call of the mills is paramount and, as you know, the young women generally follow their mothers.  So Sabina found the thought of the spinning attractive and is now, Mr. Best tells me, an amazingly clever spinner—­his very first in fact.  And it cannot be denied that Raymond sees a good deal of her.  This is probably not wise, because friendship, at their tender ages, will often run into emotion, and, naturally flattered by his ingenuous attentions, Sabina might permit herself to spin dreams and so lessen her activities as a spinner of yarn.  I say she might.  These things mean more to a girl than a boy.”

“What can I do about it?  I was going to ask you to talk sense to Raymond.”

“With all the will, I am not the man, I fear.  Sense varies so much from the standpoint of the observer, my dear Daniel.  You, for example, having an old head on young shoulders, would find yourself in agreement with my sentiments; Raymond, having a young and rather empty head on his magnificent shoulders, would not.  I take the situation to be this.  Raymond’s life has been suddenly changed and his prodigious physical activities reduced.  He bursts with life.  He is more alive than any youth I have ever known.  Now all this exuberance of nature must have an outlet, and what more natural than that, in the presence of such an attractive young woman, the sex instinct should begin to assert itself?”

“You don’t mean he is in love, or anything like that?”

“That is just exactly what I do mean,” answered Mr. Churchouse.

“I thought he probably liked to chatter to them all, and hear his own voice, and talk rubbish about what he’ll do for them in the future.”