'This long war,' she said, looking round cheerfully, 'will be the making of the islands if it lasts. Never was there so much money about: we roll in money: the women have all got silks and satins: the men drink port wine and the finest French brandy, which they run over for themselves: the merchantmen put into the road, and the sailors spend their money at the port. Why shouldn't we go on fighting the French until they haven't a ship left afloat? My man made the run last week, and hid the cargo--I know where. I shall help him to carry the kegs across to the garrison, where they want brandy badly. A fine run and a good day's work!' She looked around with a jubilant countenance. Then another memory seized her, and the light left her eyes. 'Better be drowned yourself than marry a man who is going to be drowned! Better not marry at all than lose your husband six months afterwards. It is long ago, now, Armorel. Time goes on--one can remember. He would be very old now--yes--very old. Sometimes I see him still. But he has not grown old where he is staying. That is bad for me, because he liked young women, not old women. Men mostly do. They are so made, even the oldest of them. Perhaps the old women, when they rise again, are made young again, so that their lovers may love them still.' The clock struck half-past eight. Armorel stopped playing and the old lady stopped talking at the same moment. Her eyes closed, her head fell forward, she became comatose. Then the two serving-women got up and helped her, or carried her, out of the room to her bedroom behind. And the old man arose, and without so much as a good-night hobbled away to his own cottage. 'She will go to bed now,' said Armorel. 'Chessun will take in her broth and her wine, and she will sleep all night.' 'Do you have this performance every night?' 'Yes; the playing seems to put life and heart into her. All the morning she dozes, or if she wakes she is not often able to talk; but in the evening, when we sit around the fire just as they used to sit in the old days, without candles--because my people were poor and candles were dear--and when Chessun spins and I play--she revives and sits up and talks, as you have seen her.' 'Yes. It is rather ghostly.' 'Justinian used to play--oh! he could play very well indeed.' 'Not so well as you.' 'Yes--much better--and he knows hundreds of tunes. But his fingers became stiff with rheumatism, and, as he had put off teaching Peter until it was too late, he taught me. That is all.' 'I think you play wonderfully well. Do you play nothing but old tunes?' 'I only know what I have learned. There is that song which I heard the lady sing last year--I don't know what it is called. Tell me if you like it.' She struck the strings again and played a song full of life and spirit, of tenderness and fond memory--a bright, sparkling song--which wanted no words. 'Oh!' cried Roland, 'you are really wonderful. You are playing the "Kerry Dance."'