"From Florida last by way of New York."
"Ah! Many ships about?"
"Not many but our own."
"There will be no bones left to pick soon," he laughed, "and the appetite grows. And what with the preventive men and their new powers it will soon be difficult to pick up an honest living."
"From all accounts M. Torode manages it one way or another," I said.
"All the same it gets more difficult. It's a case of too many pots and not enough lobsters."
And then Jeanne Falla, who had gone across to the others, suddenly clapped her hands, and Nicholas Grut's hungry bow dashed into a quick step that set feet dancing in spite of themselves.
And Carette sprang up from her seat and stepped out of her bower, and her face, radiant at her release, had in it all the loveliness of all the flowers from among which she came. The roses clung to her white gown as though loth to let her go, and strewed the ground as she passed, and no man's heart but must have jumped the quicker at sight of her coming towards him with welcomes in her eyes and hands.
She came straight across to us, and the other girls watched eagerly to see which of us she would speak to first—for Midsummer Eve is as full of signs and omens as Aunt Jeanne's gâche of currants.
She gave a hand to each of us, the left to me and the right to young Torode, and the left is nearer the heart, said I to myself.