"I beg your pardon, Madam!" exclaimed the Doctor. He had just returned with a string of bass from the bay. "I am sorry if I have disturbed you."
"Don't mention it," she replied with a smile. "Everything was so still. Why, what a catch you have had!"
"They bite well to-day. Aren't they beauties? Two of them will weigh three pounds apiece. Why is it so quiet here? Are all the men away?"
"The soldiers, as you know, are drilling, and the habitants are finishing the fallow."
"I thought it peculiar to find you entirely alone."
"None but the women and the sentinels are about."
"I saw you reading a letter," said Beaumont, laying his fish behind a log in the shade, and taking a seat beside them. "Is it a new one, may I ask?"
"No, I am sorry to say. I am foolish enough to read all these old ones more than once."
"More than once," he echoed. "Why, I read mine every day, sometimes over and over again."
"You extravagant man! You will wear them all out before the next supply arrives."