Mr. Trippett changed the subject, and began to talk of London and what Mr. Pepperdine had seen there. But when the tea-table had been cleared, and Mrs. Trippett had departed to the kitchen regions to bustle amongst her maids, and the two farmers were left in the parlour with the spirit decanters on the table, their tumblers at their elbows and their pipes in their mouths, the host referred to Mr. Pepperdine’s recent mission with some curiosity. ‘I never rightly heard the story of this nephew of yours,’ he said. ‘You see, I hadn’t come to these parts when your sister was married. The missis says she remembers her, ’cause she used to visit hereabouts in days past. It were a bit of a romance like, eh?’ Mr. Pepperdine took a pull at his glass and shook his head. ‘Ah!’ said he oracularly. ‘It was. A romance like those you read of in the story-books. I remember the beginning of it all as well as if it were yesterday. Lucy--that was the lad’s mother, my youngest sister, you know, Trippett--was a girl then, and the prettiest in all these parts: there’s nobody’ll deny that.’ ‘I always understood that she was a beauty,’ said Mr. Trippett. ‘And you understood rightly. There wasn’t Lucy’s equal for beauty in all the county,’ affirmed Mr. Pepperdine. ‘The lad has her eyes--eh, dear, I’ve heard high and low talk of her eyes. But he’s naught else of hers--all the rest his father’s--Lucy was fair.’ He paused to apply a glowing coal to the tobacco in his long pipe, and he puffed out several thick clouds of smoke before he resumed his story. ‘Well, Lucy was nineteen when this Mr. Cyprian Damerel came along. You can ask your missis what like he was--women are better hands at describing a man’s looks than a man is. He were a handsome young man, but foreign in appearance, though you wouldn’t ha’ told it from his tongue. The boy’ll be like him some day. He came walking through Simonstower on his way from Scarhaven, and naught would content him but that he must set up his easel and make a picture of the village. He found lodgings at old Mother Grant’s, and settled down, and he was one of that sort that makes themselves at home with everybody in five minutes. He’d an open face and an open hand; he’d talk to high and low in just the same way; and he’d a smile for everybody.’ ‘And naturally all the lasses fell in love with him,’ suggested Mr. Trippett, with a hearty laugh. ‘I’ve heard my missis say he’d a way with him that was taking with the wenches--specially them as were inclined that way, like.’