"I believe you," said Paulina; "but, do you know, it strikes me that she is not so meek as she looks and has a will of her own."
"Very likely," I said, reflecting that the curves of Agneta's mouth and chin were similar to mother's, and mother had never shown any lack of spirit and determination.
I was rather sorry to see Mr. Faulkner go off on his bicycle soon after luncheon, for I wanted father to know more of him. The rest of us spent the afternoon in the garden. Paulina and her father, Colonel Hyde and Agneta had a game of croquet, while Aunt Patty, father and I sat and chatted in the summer-house at the end of the lawn.
"Oh, father, do tell auntie about Miss Cottrell!" I said, after first looking cautiously round to be sure that the spinster was not within earshot, but for once she had taken herself out of the way.
"Alias Miss Smith," he said.
"Was it really an inn in which you used to see her?" I asked.
"Yes, a good old country inn, much frequented by fishermen in the season. I went there several summers in succession, till the cares of a family shackled my movements. John Smith and his wife were homely, honest folk who made us very comfortable in rustic fashion. They did not call the 'Havelock Arms' an hotel, nor speak of their boarders as 'paying guests,'" said my father with a mischievous glance at Aunt Patty.
"Their niece would have done so, if she had ever alluded to the business," I remarked. "I imagine John Smith was the uncle whose money she inherited."
"She told me he was in the tea trade," said my aunt.
Father laughed.