ay certain details of his
health. "But I'm betterin'. Food's a blessin', however ye come
by it."

On a sudden, as she read his thought, the very tokens of health in his
face accused her . . . and, a moment since, she had been merely glad to
note them.

"Clothes too, ye'll say? I don't set store by clothes, meself; but a
fine han'some quean they make of ye. That's a mare, too! Cost a
hundred guineas, I shouldn't wonder. . . . Well, an' how's the gentleman
keepin'? Turned into a lord, you told us, in one o' your letters: that,
or something o' the sort."

"Then at any rate you have read my letters?"

"Why, to be sure. My old eyes can't tackle 'em; but your mother reads
'em out, over an' over, an' I tell her what this an' that means, an' get
the sense into her head somehow."

"Take me to her." Ruth signalled to the grooms, who came forward.
They were well-trained servants, recent imports from England, and Sir
Oliver had billeted them where they could hear no gossip of her history.
They had kept their distance with faces absolutely impassive while their
mistress kissed and chatted with this old man, and they merely touched
their hats, with a "Very good, miss," when she gave over the mare,
saying she would walk up to the cottage and rest for an hour.

"Oo-oof! the dear old smell!" Ruth, before she turned, drew in a deep
breath of it. There was no one near to observe and liken her, standing
there with blown tresses and wind-wrapt skirt on the edge of Ocean, to
the fairest among goddesses, the Sea-born.

She walked up the beach, the old man beside her.

"Ay: you reckernise the taste of it, I dessay. But you'd not come back
to it, not you. . . . It must be nigh upon dinner: my belly still keeps
time like a clock. M'ria shall cook us a few clams. Snuffin' won't
bring it back like clams." He chuckled, supposing he had made a joke.

Her mother had caught sight of them from the window where she sat as
usual watching the sea. As they climbed the slope, picking their way
along loosely-piled wreckwood, she opened the door and stood at first
fastening a clean apron and then rubbing her palms up and down upon it,
as though they were sweaty and she would dry them before she shook
hands.

"That's so, M'ria!" the old man shouted cheerfully, as his eyes made out
the patch of white apron in the doorway. "It's our Ruth, all right--
come to pay us a visit!" He bawled it, at close quarters. This was his
way of conv