He unfolds his budget of news:  a lugger driven by stress of weather upon the Castle Rock; suspicions of smuggling among the rough beyond Langness Cove; Dr. Holden’s new partner arrived last night.

“I have asked him to come up this evening.  A decent sort of chap.”

Forthwith they fired a volley of questions.  Was he old or young, married or single? had he blue eyes or brown? and how was he called?

To all papa makes shift to reply.  The name he had forgotten, also the colour of his hair; but the fellow had eyes and two arms and two legs; he did not squint; had a pleasant address and all the appearance of an unmarried man.

“How could you see that, wise father?” asked Doll.

“He looked so sheepish when I mentioned my daughters.  Doubtless he had heard of you, Miss Doll, and of your dangerous wiles.”

She pinched his ear.  They were excellent friends, were father and eldest daughter.  Mr. Driver, a scholar and a man of letters, who had been thankful to exchange an uncertain footing upon the lower rungs of the ladder of literature for a small post under Government, had for years devoted his talents to the education of the children.  In Dolly, as his most apt pupil, he took a peculiar pride.

“Come in, doctor!” cried Mr. Driver that night.  “We are all dying, but only to make your acquaintance.”

The new visitor was checked at the very threshold by Dolly’s cry—­

“Mr. Purling!”

And Harold stood confessed to his cousins without a chance of further disguise.

“Cousin Harold, you mean,” he said, as he offered Dolly his hand.

She tried hard to hide her blushes; and then and there Mrs. Driver, after the manner of mothers, built up a great castle in the air, which her husband shook instantly to its foundations by asking unceremoniously and not without a shade of angry suspicion in his tone—­

“Why did you not claim relationship this morning?”

He disliked the notion of a man stealing into his house under false colours.

“I waited for you to speak.  You heard my name.”

“I did not catch it clearly.  Besides, I had never heard of you.  None of us have.  Your mother did not choose to recognise the relationship.”

“She called you a tide-waiter,” said his wife indignantly.

“At least I’m not a white-tied waiter,” cried Mr. Driver, with a laugh, in which all joined.  Then in low voice Dolly said—­

“I met Mr. Purling at Purlington.”

At which her father turned upon her with newly-raised suspicion.  Why had she not mentioned the fact before?  But something in Mrs. Driver’s face deterred him.  A woman in these matters sees how the land lies, while the cleverest man is still unable to distinguish it from the clouds upon the horizon-line.

“We are pleased to know you, Harold,” said Mrs. Driver, a gentle, soft-voiced motherly person.