iciously when he thought she was not looking at him. Thus she won,
only to lose what she had won, and when they reached the breezy cliffs
of Eype, Estelle reckoned that she stood towards him pretty much as she
stood at starting. But slowly, surely, inevitably, before such good
temper and tact he thawed a little. They tethered the pony, gave it a
nosebag and then spread their meal. Abel was quick and neat. She noticed
that his hands were like his mother's--finely tapered, suggestive of
art. But on that subject he seemed to have no ideas, and she found,
after trying various themes, that he cared not in the least for music,
or pictures, but certainly shared his father's interest in mechanics.

Abel talked of the Mill--self-consciously at first; yet when he found
that Estelle ignored the past, and understood spinning, he forgot
himself entirely for a time under the spell of the subject.

They compared notes, and she saw he was more familiar than she with
detail. Then, while still forgetting his listener, Abel remembered
himself and his talk of the Mill turned into a personal channel. There
is no more confidential thing, by fits and starts, than a shy child; and
just as Estelle felt the boy would never come any closer, or give her a
chance to help him, suddenly he startled her with the most unexpected
utterance.

"You mightn't know it," he said, "but by justice and right I should have
the whole works for my very own when Mister Ironsyde died. Because he's
my father, though I daresay he pretends to everybody he isn't."

"I'm very sure Mister Ironsyde doesn't feel anything but jolly kind and
friendly to you, Abel. He doesn't pretend he isn't your father. Why
should he? You know he's often offered to be friends, and he even
forgave you for trying to burn down the Mill. Surely that was a pretty
good sign he means to be friendly?"

"I don't want his friendship, because he's not good to mother. He served
her very badly. I understand things a lot better than you might think."

"Well, don't spoil your lunch," she said. "We'll talk afterwards. Are
you ready for another bottle of gingerbeer? I don't like this gingerbeer
out of glass bottles. I like it out of stone bottles."

"So do I," he answered, instantly dropping his own wrongs. "But the
glass bottles have glass marbles in them, which you can use; and so it's
better to have them, because it doesn't matter so much about the taste
after it's drunk."

She asked him concerning