"It's Northern brusqueness. She's honest----"
"But rude. The two seem to go together with many people. They think they will be taken for rascals if they are decently polite." Laurance remonstrated. "Mrs. Pelgrin is a rough diamond."
"I like my jewels polished. However, here we are and here we stay, and here we eat, if that amiable lady will bring in supper. Then I shall go to bed, as I shall certainly yawn my head off if I don't."
"But it's just after six," cried Laurance. "I want to take you to see Vincent to-night--this evening, that is."
"Go yourself, and see the beautiful Mildred," muttered Dan drowsily. "Two's company and three's a crowd. I'm going to bed"; and, in spite of Laurance's arguments against such sloth, to bed he went, after a brisk fight with Mrs. Pelgrin over a fire in his sleeping apartment. He said that he wanted one, while the landlady declared that it was unnecessary. Finally Dan got his own way, and when the fire was blazing, Mrs. Pelgrin said good-night. "But you're no more nor a butterfly," she informed her guest, and went out banging the door, with muttering remarks concerning people who felt cold. "No doubt this weather is here regarded as tropical," murmured Dan, getting into bed and referring to the weather, and he smiled over Mrs. Pelgrin's manners until he fell asleep. Next morning Laurance woke him at eight, and Dan grumbled about getting up, although he was assured that he had slept the clock round. However, a cold bath soon brisked him up, and he came down to the sitting-room with an excellent appetite for breakfast. Mrs. Pelgrin brought it in, and again joked in her fierce way about the cold, which the butterfly--as she again termed Dan--was supposed to feel so keenly. Laurance talked about Mildred, who had been delighted to see him, but mentioned regretfully that he did not think that Dan would get the machine he was in search of. "Why not?" asked Mr. Halliday, lighting his pipe and finishing his third cup of coffee. "Vincent wants his aeroplanes exploited, doesn't he? And where will he find a better chance than for an experienced man, such as I am, flying his latest invention in The Moment's London to York race?"
"Vincent's a queer fish. That's all I can say," retorted Laurance. "Well, you can't say more and you can't say less, I suppose. We'll go and have a look at the queer fish in his pond whenever you like."
"At eleven o'clock then."
"Right oh! I can talk to the uncle and you can talk to the niece. It's a fair division of labor." This arrangement was willingly agreed to by Laurance, as Dan was certain it would be since he saw that his friend was fathoms deep in love. Afterwards, the two went out of doors and surveyed the landscape. Sheepeak was situated on the top of a lofty tableland, the village being a tolerably large collection of substantial stone houses, whence the moors spread north and south, east and west. From where they were, the friends could see the green squares of cultivated fields, the purple bloom of the heather, and the azure hues which distance gave to the distant mountains. Here and there the vast country, which looked enormously large from the elevation whence they surveyed it, dipped into verdant dales, snugly clothed with forests, and sprinkled with manor-houses and villages, big and little. The lands were so far-stretching and the prospect so extensive, that Dan became mightily impressed with the magnitude of the sky. It covered them like a huge inverted cup, and as there was nothing to break its league-long sweep, Dan felt quite small in the immensity which surrounded him above and below. "I feel like a pill in the Desert of Sahara," said Mr. Halliday, sighing. "What is the sensation of feeling like a pill," rejoined Laurance drily, for he was not an imaginative individual. "Only a poet can explain, Freddy, and you are very earthy."
"I never knew you were a genius," snapped Laurance, with a shrug. "You have much to learn," replied Dan reprovingly; "and as it's near eleven o'clock, suppose we light out for Vincent." Freddy agreed, and skirting the village for three-quarters of a mile, they suddenly came upon a small cottage, with walls and roof of yellowish stone covered with lichen, and standing in a small garden of wind-tormented vegetation. A low stone wall divided this from the high road, and the visitors entered through a small wooden gate to pass up a cobble-stone walk to the modest door. But the cottage itself was dwarfed wholly by huge sheds of wood covered with roofs of galvanized tin, which loomed up suddenly behind it, on a vast scale more in keeping with the character of the landscape. These were the workshops of Vincent, where he built his machines and housed them from prying eyes. The fields at the back cultivated into smooth lawns were where the aeroplanes started to fly over hill and dale, to the wonderment of the inhabitants. "Though they are pretty well used to Vincent's vagaries by this time," said Freddy, ending his explanation. Mildred received them in the small parlor of the cottage which was about the size of a doll's drawing-room, and expressed herself as pleased to make the acquaintance of Mr. Halliday. Her uncle, she mentioned, was busy as usual in his workshop, but would see the visitors in half an hour. While she explained, Dan took stock of her, and admitted that she was really a very amiable and pretty girl, though not a patch on Lillian. But then Dan did not care for tall ladies with olive complexions, blue eyes, dark hair, and the regal melancholy look of discrowned queens. Mildred--the name suited her--was too tall and stately for his taste, which approved more of little golden-haired women, fairy-like and frolicsome. Miss Vincent looked serious and thoughtful, and although her smile was delicious, she smiled very seldom. It seemed to Dan that her solitary life in these moorlands and in the company--when she enjoyed it--of her morose uncle, made the girl sober beyond her years, which were not more than two-and-twenty. However, many minds many tastes, and Dan could not deny but what Freddy's fair Saxon looks went very well with the Celtic mystic appearance of the inventor's niece. They were a handsome couple, indeed, but much too solemn in looks and character for Dan, whose liking leaned to the frivolous side of things. "Don't you find it dull here, Miss Vincent?" asked Halliday casually. "Dull!" she echoed, turning her somewhat sad eyes of dark blue in his direction, "oh, not at all. Why I have a great deal to do. We have only one servant and I assist in the housework. My uncle is not easy to cater for, as he has many likes and dislikes with regard to food. Then he employs a certain number of workmen, and I have to pay them every Saturday. Indeed, I look after all the financial part of my uncle's business."
"Is it a business, or a whim--a hobby?" inquired Dan respectfully, for, being frivolous, he was struck with awe at the multitude of Miss Vincent's employments. "Well, more of the last than the first perhaps," said Mildred smiling at his respectful expression. "Uncle Solomon really doesn't care for publicity. All his aim is to construct a perfect machine, and he is always inventing, and improving, and thinking of new ways in which to obtain the mastery of the air."