"I believe that my father's well satisfied, Cousin Mercy, and that the venture has turned out fully as well as he looked for."
"That is well, Roger.
"Do you girls go on with your work. You can sew while you are listening. I will go and see that the preparations for dinner are going on regularly, for the maids are apt to give way to talk and gossip, when they know that the Swan is in."
As soon as she had left the room, the two girls threw down their work and, running across to Roger, saluted him most heartily.
"That is a much better welcome," Roger said, "than the formal greetings you before gave me. I wonder what Cousin Mercy would have said, had she chanced to come in again."
"Mother guessed well enough what it would be, when we were alone together," Dorothy said, laughing. "She always thinks it right on special occasions to keep us to our manners, and to make us sure that we know how it is becoming to behave; but you know well, Roger, that she is not strict with us generally, and likes us to enjoy ourselves. When we are staying up at the farm with Aunt Peggy, she lets us run about as we will; and never interferes with us, save when our spirits carry us away altogether. I think we should be glad if we always lived in the country.
"But now, Roger, let us hear much more about your voyage, and the fight with the Moors. Are they black men?"
"Not at all, Dorothy. They are not very much darker than our own fishermen, when they are bronzed by the sun and wind. There are black men who live somewhere near their country, and there were several of these fighting with them. These blacks are bigger men than the Moors, and have thick lips and wide mouths. I believe that they live as slaves among the Moors, but those who were with them fought as bravely as they did; and it needed a man with a stout heart to engage with them, so ugly were their faces."