Her eyes twinkled.  “You never say so!” she said, with exquisite malice at the expense of her clever daughter.  “I am surprised!” She sat down at the head of the kitchen table, setting a string bag full of parcels on the table in front of her.  She was breathing heavily, and her voice, he noticed, was very hoarse.  Poor little thing!  Yet she was glad.  Wonderful to see her so glad about anything; pathetic to see how, though all her life had gone shipwrecked, she cheered her daughter to voyage.  “She must live near us in Essex,” he thought rapidly.  “I must give her a decent allowance.”  “Well, well!” she said happily.

Ellen, feeling that things were being taken too much for granted, so far as she was concerned, remarked suddenly, “And I think I’ll take him.”

Her eyes twinkled again at Yaverland.  Wasn’t there something very sweet about her?  She was, in effect, glad that he loved her daughter, because now she had somebody who could laugh at this wonderful daughter!

“Let me marry her soon,” he said.

She became doubtful.  Her face contracted, as it had done when she had said, “Let her bide; she’s only a bairn.”

“We must live in Essex,” he said, to get her past the moment.

She became tragic.

“You’d like, I think, to come and live near us?  If there isn’t a house at Roothing, there are plenty at Prittlebay.  It would be good for you.  Obviously you can’t stand this climate.”

She looked up at him and said, the thought of them living together having obviously presented itself to her for the first time, “Ah, well.  I hope you’ll both be happy.  Happier than I was.”  She receded back into memory, and found first of all that ancient loyalty that she had always practised in his life.  “Not but what John Melville was a better man than anyone has allowed.”

They didn’t say anything, but stood silent, giving the moment its honour.  Then Ellen stepped to her mother’s side and said chidingly, “Mother, what’s wrong with your throat?  You had a cold when you went out, but nothing like this.  It’s terrible.”

“It’s nothing, dear.  Take Mr. Yaverland—­maircy me, what shall I call you now?”

“Richard.  That’s what my mother calls me.”

“Oh,” she cried flutteringly, “it’s like having a son again.  No one would think I was your mother, though, and you such a great thing!  Though Ronnie if he had lived would have been tall.  As tall as you, I wouldn’t wonder,” she said, with a tinge of jealousy.  “Well, Ellen, take Richard into the parlour and light the fire.  I’ll see to the supper.”

“You will not,” said Ellen, whom shyness was making deliriously surly.  It was like seeing her in a false beard.  “R—­Richard, will you take her into the parlour yourself?  She’s got a terrible throat.  Can you not hear?”

“Ellen dear!”

“Away now!”

“I will not away.  Ellen, don’t worry.  You don’t know where I put the best tablecloth after the mending—­and there’s nothing but cod-roes, and you know well that in cooking your mother beats you.  Run away, dear—­you’ll make Richard feel awkward—­”