"Was it?" said Mr Mervyn, giving a merry glance at Fin. "Well, never mind, I'll speak to Mrs Dykes about it." "Ay, she's an east-country woman. Those folks don't know much about cooking. Well, young ladies, I hear you have been to London." "Yes, Mrs Trelyan." "And you're glad to come back?" "Yes, that we are," said Fin. "Ay, I've heard it's a poor, lost sort of place, London," said the old lady. "I never went, and I never would. My son William wanted to take me once in his boot; but I wouldn't go. Your father was a wise man to buy Tolcarne; but it'll never be such a place as Penreife." "You know young Trevor's coming back?" said Mr Mervyn. "Ay, I know," said the old lady. "Martha Lloyd came up to tell me, as proud as a peacock, about her young master, talking about his fine this and fine that, till she nearly made me sick. I should get rid of her and her man if I was him." "What, Lloyd, the butler?" said Mr Mervyn, smiling. "Yes," said the old lady, grimly, "they're Welsh people; so's that young farm-bailiff of his." "You know the whole family?" said Mr Mervyn. "Why, I was born here!" said the old lady, "and I ought to. We've been here for generations. Ah! and so the young squire's coming back. Time he did; going gadding off into foreign countries all this time. Why, he's six or seven and twenty now. Ay, how time goes," continued the old lady, who was off now on her hobby. "Why, it was like yesterday that the Lloyds got Mrs Trevor to send for their sister from some place with a dreadful name; and she did, and I believe it was her death, when she might have had a good Cornish nurse; and the next thing we heard was that there was a son, and the very next week there was a grand funeral, and the poor squire was never the same man again. Ah! it was an artful trick that--sending for the nurse because Mrs Lloyd wanted her too; and young Humphrey Lloyd was born the same week. Ay, they were strange times. It seemed directly after that we had the news about the squire, who got reckless-like, always out in his yacht, a poor matchwood sort of a thing, not like our boots, and it was blown on the Longships one night, and there wasn't even a body came ashore." "Rather a sad family history," said Mr Mervyn. "Ay, sad enough," said the woman; "and now the young squire's coming home at last from sea, but he'll never be such a man as his father." "Think not?" said Mr Mervyn, musing. "Sure not," said the old woman. "Why, he was petted and spoiled by those Lloyds while he was a boy, and a pretty limb he was. Him and that young Lloyd was always in some mischief. Pretty pranks they played me. I've been out with the stick to 'em scores of times; but he was generous--I will say that--and many's the conger and bass he's brought me here, proud of 'em as could be, because he caught them himself."