"A fine old place, is it not?" asked the Captain, while a cracked bell was jingling in remote distance, amidst the drowsy summer stillness, without eliciting so much as the bark of a house-dog. "It looks very big," Violet answered dubiously, "and very empty." "My aunt has no relatives residing with her." "If she had started in life with a large family of brothers and sisters, I should think they would all be dead by this time," said the girl, with a stifled yawn that was half a sigh. "How do you mean?" "They would have died of the stillness and solitude and all-pervading desolation of Les Tourelles." "Strange houses are apt to look desolate." "Yes. Particularly when the windows have neither blinds nor curtains, and the walls have not been painted for a century." After this conversation flagged. The jingling bell was once more set going in the unknown distance; Vixen sat looking sleepily at the arched roof of foliage chequered with blue sky. Argus lolled against the carriage-door with his tongue out. They waited five minutes or so, languidly expectant. Vixen began to wonder whether the gates would ever open--whether there were really any living human creatures in that blank dead-looking house--whether they would not have to give up all idea of entering, and drive back to the harbour, and return to Hampshire by the way they had come. While she sat idly wondering thus, with the sleepy buzz of summer insects and melodious twittering of birds soothing her senses like a lullaby, the old gate groaned upon its rusty hinges, and a middle-aged woman in a black gown and a white cap appeared--a female who recognised Captain Winstanley with a curtsey, and came out to receive the smaller packages from the flyman. "Antony will take the portmanteaux," she said; "the boat must have come in earlier than usual. We did not expect you so soon." "This is one of Miss Skipwith's servants," thought Vixen; "rather a vinegary personage. I hope the other maids are nicer." The person spoken of as Antony now appeared, and began to hale about Violet's portmanteaux. He was a middle-aged man, with a bald head and a melancholy aspect. His raiment was shabby; his costume something between that of a lawyer's clerk and an agricultural labourer. Argus saluted this individual with a suppressed growl. "Sh!" cried the female vindictively, flapping her apron at the dog, "whose dog is this, sir? He doesn't belong to you, surely?" "He belongs to Miss Tempest. You must find a corner for him somewhere in the outbuildings, Hannah," said the Captain. "The dog is harmless enough, and friendly enough when he is used to people." "That won't be much good if he bites us before he gets used to us, and we die of hydrophobia in the meantime," retorted Hannah; "I believe he has taken a dislike to Antony already."