"You never take a holiday?" "Except Sundays." "You'd like to be working then?" "I won't say that." "But you're glad to be up Monday morning?" "It feels cheerfuller in the shop." "And carpentering's your joy?" "I think I may say so." Van Diemen slapped his thigh. "There's life in Old England yet!" Crickledon eyed him as he walked away to the beach to look for his daughter, and conceived that there was a touch of the soldier in him. CHAPTER IV Annette Smith's delight in her native England made her see beauty and kindness everywhere around her; it put a halo about the house on the beach, and thrilled her at Tinman's table when she heard the thunder of the waves hard by. She fancied it had been a most agreeable dinner to her father and Mr. Herbert Fellingham--especially to the latter, who had laughed very much; and she was astonished to hear them at breakfast both complaining of their evening. In answer to which, she exclaimed, "Oh, I think the situation of the house is so romantic!" "The situation of the host is exceedingly so," said Mr. Fellingham; "but I think his wine the most unromantic liquid I have ever tasted." "It must be that!" cried Van Diemen, puzzled by novel pains in the head. "Old Martin woke up a little like his old self after dinner." "He drank sparingly," said Mr. Fellingham. "I am sure you were satirical last night," Annette said reproachfully. "On the contrary, I told him I thought he was in a romantic situation." "But I have had a French mademoiselle for my governess and an Oxford gentleman for my tutor; and I know you accepted French and English from Mr. Tinman and his sister that I should not have approved." "Netty," said Van Diemen, "has had the best instruction money could procure; and if she says you were satirical, you may depend on it you were." "Oh, in that case, of course!" Mr. Fellingham rejoined. "Who could help it?" He thought himself warranted in giving the rein to his wicked satirical spirit, and talked lightly of the accidental character of the letter H in Tinman's pronunciation; of how, like somebody else's hat in a high wind, it descended on somebody else's head, and of how his words walked about asking one another who they were and what they were doing, danced together madly, snapping their fingers at signification; and so forth. He was flippant. Annette glanced at her father, and dropped her eyelids. Mr. Fellingham perceived that he was enjoined to be on his guard. He went one step farther in his fun; upon which Van Diemen said, with a frown, "If you please!" Nothing could withstand that. "Hang old Mart Tinman's wine!" Van Diemen burst out in the dead pause. "My head's a bullet. I'm in a shocking bad temper. I can hardly see. I'm bilious." Mr. Fellingham counselled his lying down for an hour, and he went grumbling, complaining of Mart Tinman's incredulity about the towering beauty of a place in Australia called Gippsland.