“They never leave Dinan. The kind of life suits them. Mamma knits; papa has his club and his English newspapers. People enjoy the English papers so much more when they live abroad than when they are at home. Mamma is a very bad sailor. It would be a risk for her to cross. If my sister or I were dangerously ill, mamma would come. But it would be at the hazard of her life. Papa has often told me so.” “And your father, is he a bad sailor?” “He is rather worse than mamma.” “Then I conclude you were married at Dinan?” “Oh yes; I never left Brittany until my wedding-day.” “What a pretty idea! It is as if Major Disney had found a new kind of wild flower in some cranny of the old grey wall that guards the town.” “You know Dinan?” “There are very few places within easy reach of a yachtsman that I don’t know. I have anchored in almost every bay between Cherbourg and Brest, and have rambled inland whenever there was anything worth seeing within a day’s journey from the coast. Yes, I know Dinan well. Strange to think that I may have passed you in the street there. Do you sketch, by the way?” “A little.” “Ah, then, perhaps you are one of the young ladies I have seen sitting at street corners, or under archways, doing fearful and wonderful things with a box of moist colours and a drawing-board.” “The young ladies who sit about the streets are tourists,” said Isola, with a look of disgust. “I understand. The resident ladies would no more do such things than they would sit upon the pavement and make pictures of salmon or men-of-war in coloured chalks, like our Metropolitan artists.” “I think I hear a carriage,” said Isola, putting down her cup and saucer, and looking at her jacket, which Mrs. Mayne was holding before the fire. “Yes, that is the carriage,” answered Lostwithiel, opening the glass door. “What a night! The rain is just as bad as it was when I brought you indoors.” “If you will accept the use of a shawl, ma’am, it would be safer than putting on this damp jacket.” “Yes, Mayne, get your shawl. Mrs. Disney will wear it, I know.” The housekeeper bustled out, and Lostwithiel and his guest were alone, looking at each other somewhat helplessly, as they stood far apart, she in the glow of the hearth, he in the darkness near the door, and feeling that every available subject of conversation had been exhausted. Their embarrassment was increased when Dalton and a footman came in with two great lamps and flooded the room with light. “I hardly know how to thank you for having taken so much trouble about me,” Isola faltered presently, under that necessity to say something which is one of the marks of shyness.