“Oh, you still stick to those sponges?” said Priscilla.
“Miss Rutherford,” said Frank, “is collecting zoophytes for the British Museum.”
“Investigating and tabulating,” said Miss Rutherford, “for the Royal Dublin Society’s Natural History Survey.”
“I took up elementary science last term,” said Priscilla, “but we didn’t do about those things of yours. I daresay we’ll get on to them next year. If we do I’ll write to you for the names of some of the rarer kinds and score off Miss Pennycolt with them. She’s the science teacher, and she thinks she knows a lot. It’ll do her good to be made to look small over a sponge that she’s never seen before, or even heard of.”
“I’ll send them to you,” said Miss Rutherford. “I take the greatest delight in scoring off science teachers everywhere. I was taught science myself at one time and I know exactly what it’s like.”
Jimmy Kinsella sat on a stone with his back to the party in the Tortoise. An instinct for good manners is the natural inheritance of all Irishmen. The peasant has it as surely as the peer, generally indeed more surely, for the peer, having mixed more with men of other nations, loses something of his natural delicacy of feeling. When, as in the case of young Kinsella, the Irishman has much to do with the sea his courtesy reaches a high degree of refinement. As the advancing tide crept inch by inch over the mudbank Jimmy Kinsella was forced back towards the Tortoise. He moved from stone to stone, dragging his boat after him as the water floated her. Never once did he look round or make any attempt to attract the attention of Miss Rutherford. He would no doubt have retreated uncomplaining to the highest point of the bank and sat there till the water reached his waist, clinging to the painter of the boat, rather than disturb the conversation of the lady whom he had taken under his care. But his courtesy was put to no such extreme test. He made a move at last which brought him within a few feet of the Tortoise. A mere patch of sea-soaked mud remained uncovered. The water, advancing from the far side of the bank, already lapped against the bows of the Tortoise. Miss Rutherford woke up to the fact that the time for catching sponges was past.
“I’m afraid,” she said, “that I ought to be getting home. I can’t tell you how much obliged to you I am for feeding me. I believe I should have fainted if it hadn’t been for that tongue.”
“It was a pleasure to us,” said Priscilla. “We’d eaten all we could before you came.”
“I’m afraid,” said Frank politely, “that it wasn’t very nice. We ought to have had knives and forks or at least a tumbler to drink out of. I don’t know what you must think of us.”
“Think of you!” said Miss Rutherford. “I think you’re the two nicest children I ever met.”