Nell of Shorne Mills

She laughed.

"I can scarcely imagine you doing that," she said.

"Well, I might buy a trawler, and go fishing in the bay."

"That would be better," she admitted. "But it's very tough weather

sometimes. I have seen the women waiting on the jetty, and on the

cliffs, and looking out at the storm, with their faces white with fear

and anxiety for the men--their fathers and husbands and sweethearts."

"There wouldn't be any women to watch and grow white for me," he

remarked.

"Oh, but don't you think we should be anxious--mamma and I?" she said.

He looked at her, but her eyes met his innocently, and there was not a

sign of coquetry in her smile.

"Thanks. In that case, I must abandon the idea of getting my livelihood

as a fisherman," he said lightly. "I couldn't think of causing Mrs.

Lorton any further anxiety."

"Shall we have another gallop?" she asked, a moment or two afterward.

"We might ride to that farm there"--she pointed to a thatched roof just

visible above a hollow--"and get a glass of milk. I am quite thirsty."

She made the suggestion blithely, as if neither her own nor his words

had remained in her mind; and Drake brightened up as they sped over the

springy turf.

A woman came out of the farm, and greeted them with a cordial welcome in

the smile which she bestowed on Nell, and the half nod, half curtsy, she

gave to Drake.

"Why, Miss Nell, it be yew sure enough," she said pleasantly. "I was

a-thinkin' that 'eed just forgot us. Bobby! Bobby! do 'ee come and hold

the horses. Here be Miss Nell of Shorne Mills."

A barefooted, ruddy-cheeked little man ran out and laughed up at Nell as

she bent down and stroked his head with her whip. Nell and Drake

dismounted, and she led the way into the kitchen and living room of the

farm.

The room was so low that Drake felt he must stoop, and Nell's tall

figure looked all the taller and slimmer for its propinquity to the

timbered ceiling. The woman brought a couple of glasses of milk and some

saffron cakes, and Nell drank and ate with a healthy, unashamed

appetite, and apparently quite forgot Drake, who, seated in the

background, sipped his milk and watched and listened to her absently.

She knew this woman and her husband and the children quite intimately;

asked after the baby's last tooth as she bent over the sleeping mite,

and was anxious to know how the eldest girl, who was in service in

London, was getting on.