"Ample. She told me there was a box. She said it was moored at the end of a groin, and accordingly dear Randolph watched all through luncheon, and afterwards, when they could wade out and reach the end of the rope that tied it, he and Fred pulled it in and helped Fitch and the coachman carry it up. It's a curious little box for a lady to have, well made, of course, but of wood, with a ship painted on the top and the name of 'Tom' cut in it roughly with a knife; but, as she says, leather simply will _not_ last down there, and one has to put up with what one can get; and the great thing is it's _full_, perfectly full, of gold coins and things. Yes, gold--and diamonds, Mr. Melville. You know Randolph understands something-- Yes, well he says that box--oh! I couldn't tell you _how_ much it isn't worth! And all the gold things with just a sort of faint reddy touch.... But anyhow, she is rich, as well as charming and beautiful. And really you know, Mr. Melville, altogether-- Well, I'm going to help her, just as much as ever I can. Practically, she's to be our paying guest. As you know--it's no great secret between _us_--Adeline-- Yes.... She'll be the same. And I shall bring her out and introduce her to people and so forth. It will be a great help. And for everyone except just a few intimate friends, she is to be just a human being who happens to be an invalid--temporarily an invalid--and we are going to engage a good, trustworthy woman--the sort of woman who isn't astonished at anything, you know--they're a little expensive but they're to be got even nowadays--who will be her maid--and make her dresses, her skirts at any rate--and we shall dress her in long skirts--and throw something over It, you know----" "Over----?" "The tail, you know." My cousin Melville said "Precisely!" with his head and eyebrows. But that was the point that hadn't been clear to him so far, and it took his breath away. Positively--a tail! All sorts of incorrect theories went by the board. Somehow he felt this was a topic not to be too urgently pursued. But he and Mrs. Bunting were old friends. "And she really has ... a tail?" he asked. "Like the tail of a big mackerel," said Mrs. Bunting, and he asked no more. "It's a most extraordinary situation," he said. "But what else _could_ I do?" asked Mrs. Bunting. "Of course the thing's a tremendous experiment," said my cousin Melville, and repeated quite inadvertently, "_a tail!_" Clear and vivid before his eyes, obstructing absolutely the advance of his thoughts, were the shiny clear lines, the oily black, the green and purple and silver, and the easy expansiveness of a mackerel's termination. "But really, you know," said my cousin Melville, protesting in the name of reason and the nineteenth century--"a tail!" "I patted it," said Mrs. Bunting. IV Certain supplementary aspects of the Sea Lady's first conversation with Mrs. Bunting I got from that lady herself afterwards.