"Who's stopping you?"
"I suppose that sort of thing is pretty futile nowadays ... It would have been fine, though, to have been born in a time ..."
"Wouldn't Wenny have been angry hearing you say that?"
They turned towards each other and laughed.
"Wenny could have done anything ... Think that all his life should be gone, like a glass of wine poured on the ground."
"Such a Biblical metaphor." Nan laughed deep in her throat. "Maybe you and I are the ground, Fanshaw, who can tell?"
"Tares and thistles probably ... Don't you wish we were the lilies of the field?"
"That makes me think of the Reverend Jonas ... I wonder if all of poor old Wenny's troubles didn't come from that. Wasn't it a case of ... what's the quotation about the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge?"
"Don't you think it's a little vulgar to know the Bible so well?"
They both laughed. Down the coast the sun had burst through the clouds. The spreading rays brightened on the sea to great patches of heaving silver. Far out the sails of a schooner shone out suddenly like mother of pearl.