“What man?” asked Miss Bibby.
“The one who writes books,” said Lynn.
“What is the child talking about?” said Miss Bibby, looking at Pauline.
“At ‘Tenby,’” said Pauline. “Well, he should have asked were there any children near when he took the cottage. Why should we give up swinging on the gate? He can take his old books and sit on the Orphan Rock to write them. No one will disturb him there.”
“What are you talking about, children?” said Miss Bibby. “Pauline, answer me [p38] properly. I didn’t know ‘Tenby’ was let. Who has taken it?”
“I forget his name,” said Pauline; “please pass the bananas. Oh, Lynn, you’ve taken all the jam. Will you ring for some more, Miss Bibby?”
Miss Bibby rang absent-mindedly, though she had made the observation that any one eating bananas and strawberry jam together was actually inviting an attack of acute indigestion.
“I suppose you have confused the account,” she said, and sighed.
But a momentary agitation had shaken her.
She was a woman with one absorbing ambition—to publish a book. She carried a most pathetic tin trunk about with her—the sepulchre of the hopes of years. The MS. of at least seven novels lay inside, each neatly wrapped in paper, and with a faithful docket of its adventures pasted upon it.