Selina rocked home in her cabriolet no whit perturbed by the Squire’s optimism. Nor’-easterly head winds, indeed! . . . Three months from that date Mr. Tregellas returned the call. Selina was feeding ducks in the yard when he came. She emptied her apron, led the Squire into the kitchen and gave him a glass of cowslip wine—which he needed. “Come to offer me a price for Tregors?” she asked. The old gambler blinked his weak eyes pathetically, like a child blinking back tears, and buried his face in his hands. Selina did not twit him further. There was no need. She had him where she wanted him. She smiled to herself. So the pearl ship had gone the deep road of the Fowey privateer—and all the other ventures. She clicked her tongue, “Tchuc—tchuc!” and offered him another glass of wine. “I’ll send for John Penhale to-morrow,” said she. “I’ll tell him that if he don’t take your maid he shan’t have Tregors. You tell your maid if she don’t take my John I’ll put you all out on the road come Michaelmas. Now get along wid ’ee.” Arethusina came over to Tregors to pay Mrs. Donnithorne a week’s visit, and John was angled from his retreat by the bait of a roan colt he had long coveted and which his aunt suddenly expressed herself willing to sell. The sun was down when he reached the farm; Selina met him in the yard, and leading him swiftly into the stables explained the lay of the land while he unsaddled his horse, but she did not tell him what pressure had been brought to bear on the youngest Miss Tregellas. John was amazed and delighted. Mr. Hugh Tregellas’ daughter willing to marry him, a common farmer! Pretty too; he had seen her once, before his accident, sitting in the family pew in Cury church—plump, fluffy little thing with round blue eyes, like a kitten. This was incredible luck! He was young then and hot-blooded, sick of the loneliness of Bosula and the haphazard ministrations of the two slatterns. He was for dashing into the house and starting his love-making there and then, but Selina held him, haggling like a fish wife over the price of the roan. When he at length got away from her it was thick dusk. It was dark in the kitchen, except for the feeble glow of the turf fire, Selina explaining that she had unaccountably run out of tallow dips—the boy should fetch some from Helston on the morrow.