As he concluded he raised himself lightly to his feet, and commenced his descent of the hill as easily and jauntily as he had ascended it. His lame leg troubled him a little, and once when he trod on a rolling stone and nearly fell, he stopped and smiled pleasantly at the erring foot, and shook his cane facetiously over it. As he entered the village, he muttered to himself: "Good heavens! _du monde_, how very interesting!" For the hours of toil were over, and the shopkeepers and the wives of the fishermen, and such of the fisher-boys as had not gone to sea that evening, were standing at their doors and gossiping, or playing in the street. The lace-making girls were there too--very pretty girls for the most part, with big black eyes and swarthy complexions and thick blue-black hair; their birthright these advantages, for in the old days one of the home-flying ships of the Spanish Armada had been wrecked on the Beachborough coast, and the saved mariners had intermarried with the village women, and transmitted their swarthy comeliness to their posterity. As the Captain passed by, hats were lifted and curtsies dropped, courtesy which he duly returned by touching his sombrero with his forefinger in the military style to the men, and by God-blessing the women and chin-chucking the girls with great heartiness. So on till he arrived at his own house, where he opened the door from the outside, and entering the handsome old dining-room, was surprised to see the table laid for four persons. "Hallo! what's this?" he said to a woman at the other end of the room with her back towards him. "Who is coming to dinner, Mrs. Stothard?" "Have you forgotten?" said the woman addressed, without turning her head. "Dr. Wainwright." "Oh, ah!" growled Captain Derinzy, in a subdued key. "Where's Annette?" "In her own room." "Why don't she come down?" "Because she's heard Dr. Wainwright is expected, and has turned sulky, and won't move." "Oh, dam!" said Captain Derinzy. CHAPTER III. DURING OFFICE-HOURS.