"Indeed yes," said Mrs. Frost. "Dan, too, is a fiddler after a fashion; and as for Nancy, she has a passion for music, and dreams away many an evening while my son plays his old tunes."
"Ah, yes," said the Marquis, "Mademoiselle Nancy, I have not the pleasure to see her this morning?"
"No," replied Mrs. Frost, flushing a trifle at the recollection of why Nancy was not present, "she is somewhat indisposed—a mere trifle. You will see her later in the day. But, monsieur, you should have come to us in the spring or the summer, for then the country is truly beautiful; now, with these snow-bound roads, when not even the stagecoach passes, we are indeed lonely and remote."
"It is that," insisted the Marquis, "which so charms me. When one is old and when one has lived a life too occupied, it is this peace, this quiet, this remoteness one desires. To walk a little, to sit by your so marvellously warm fires, to look upon your beautiful country, cest bou!"
He held her for a moment with his piercing little eyes, a faint smile upon his lips, as though to say that it was impossible he should be convinced that he had not found precisely what he was seeking, and insisting, as it were, that his hostess take his words as the compliment they were designed to be.
Before she had time to reply, he had turned to Dan. "What a fine harbour you have, Monsieur Frost," he said, pointing through the window toward the Cove, separated from the river and the sea by the great curve of Strathsey Neck, its blue waters sparkling now in the light of the morning sun.
"Yes," replied Dan, glancing out upon the well-known shoreline, "it is a good harbour, though nothing, of course, to compare with a Port. But it's seldom that we see a ship at anchor here, now."
"There is, however," inquired the Marquis with interest, "anchorage for a vessel, a large vessel?"
"Yes, indeed," Tom interrupted, "in the old days when my father had his ships plying between Havana and the Port, he would often have them anchor in the Cove for convenience in lading them with corn from the farm."
"And they were large ships?"