“It isn’t much of a place, then?” said Miss Bruce, as the captain, in the exigencies of making a safe landing with his cockle-shell, again paused for a moment near her chair.
“Place? Post-office and Romney; that’s all. Slacken off that line there—you hear? Slacken, I tell you!”
A moment later the traveller, having made her way with difficulty through the little boat’s dark, wet, hissing lower regions, emerged, and crossed a plank to the somewhat safer footing beyond.
“Is this Cicely?” she asked, as a small figure came to meet her.
“Yes, I am Cicely.”
Eve Bruce extended her hand. But Cicely put up her face for a warmer greeting.
“Are those your trunks? Oh, you have brought some one with you?”
“It’s only Meadows, my maid; she goes back to-morrow when the boat returns.”
“There’s room for her, if you mean that; the house is large enough for anything. I was only wondering what our people would make of her; they have never seen a white servant in their lives.”
“You didn’t bring—the baby?” asked Eve Bruce.