"Very well; I suppose Mrs. Barclay is in no particular hurry," said Ethel.
"Jane might get through more work if she chose," remarked Miss Hallet. "Not that I wish her to do any: it is her own will entirely. On the other hand, I have no objection to it: and as she is fond of finer clothes than I should purchase for her, she has to get them for herself. Just before you came in, Miss Reene, I was telling her how she fritters away her time. Once dusk has set in, down she goes to her acquaintances in the village, and there she stays with one and another of them, never heeding anything else. It is a great waste of time."
Of all the hot faces, Jane's at that moment was the hottest. She was standing before Miss Reene, going on with her work as she stood. Ethel wondered why she coloured so.
"To-night she stays at Susan Pike's; to-morrow night it's at Martha Nettleby's; the next night it's at old. Mother Dance's, under the cliff!" went on Miss Hallet. "Chattering with one gossip and another, and dancing after burnt children, and what not, Jane never lacks an excuse for idling away her evenings."
"Mrs. Castlemaine said something about having her initials worked on these handkerchiefs: do you know whether she wishes it done, Miss Reene?" interposed Jane, who seemed to be flurried by the lecture. "I did not like to ask about it yesterday afternoon."
"I don't know at all," said Ethel "You had better see Mrs. Castlemaine."
"Very well, ma'am."
Ethel went down the cliff again, tripping along the zigzag path. Other paths branched off to other cottages. She took one that brought her to the door of Tim Gleeson's hut: a poor place of two rooms, with a low roof. Tim, a very idle, improvident, easy, and in general good-tempered man, sat on a stone at the door, his blue cloth legs stretched out, his rough face gloomy. "You are not in the boat to-day, Tim," remarked Ethel.
"Not to-day, Miss Castlemaine," said the man, slowly rising. "I'm a going out with the next tide. This accident have took all strength out of me! When a lot of 'em come fizzing into the Dolphin last night, a saying our Polly was afire, you might ha' knocked me down with a feather. Mrs. Bent she went on at me like anything, she did--as if it was my fault! Telling me she'd like to shut the inn doors again' me, for I went there when I ought to be elsewhere, and that I warn't good for my salt. I'd rather it had been any of 'em nor Polly: she's such a nice little thing, she is."
"Is your wife indoors?"