‘Have you seen the Queen of the White Ants?’

’Not yet; but I mean to reconnoitre, and if I see no cause to the contrary, I shall invite them for next Tuesday.’

‘The mother?  You might as well ask her namesake.’

‘Probably; but I shall be better able to judge when I have seen her.’

So Miss Mohun trotted off, made her visit, and thus reported, ’Poor woman! she certainly is not lovely now, whatever she may have been; but I should think there was no harm in her, and she is effusive in her gratitude to all the Merrifield family.  It is plain that the absent eldest son is the favourite, far more so than the two useful children at the marble works; and Mr. White is spoken of as a sort of tyrant, whereas I should think they owed a good deal to his kindness in giving them employment.’

‘I always thought he was an old hunks.’

’The town thinks so because he does not come and spend freely here; but I have my doubts whether they are right.  He is always ready to do his part in subscriptions; and the employing these young people as he does is true kindness.’

‘Unappreciated.’

’Yes, by the mother who would expect to be kept like a lady in idleness, but perhaps not so by her daughter.  From all I can pick up, I think she must be a very worthy person, so I have asked her and the little schoolgirl for Tuesday evening, and I hope it will not be a great nuisance to you, Ada.’

‘Oh no,’ said Miss Adeline, good humouredly, ’it will please Gillian, and I shall be interested in seeing the species, or rather the variety.’

‘Var Musa Groeca Hibernica Militaris,’ laughed Aunt Jane.

‘By the bye, I further found out what made the Captain enlist.’

‘Trust you for doing that!’ laughed her sister.

’Really it was not on purpose, but old Zack Skilly was indulging me with some of his ancient smuggling experiences, in what he evidently views as the heroic age of Rockquay.  “Men was men, then,” he says.  “Now they be good for nought, but to row out the gentlefolks when the water is as smooth as glass.”  You should hear the contempt in his voice.  Well, a promising young hero of his was Dick White, what used to work for his uncle, but liked a bit of a lark, and at last hit one of the coastguard men in a fight, and ran away, and folks said he had gone for a soldier.  Skilly had heard he was dead, and his wife had come to live in these parts, but there was no knowing what was true and what wasn’t.  Folks would talk!  Dick was a likely chap, with more life about him than his cousin Jem, as was a great man now, and owned all the marble works, and a goodish bit of the town.  There was a talk as how the two lads had both been a courting of the same maid, that was Betsy Polwhele, and had fallen out about her, but how that might be he could not tell.  Anyhow, she was not wed to one nor t’other of them, but went into a waste and died.’