"Mrs. Chester."
"Who is Harry Thornycroft?" were Mr. Lake's first words when her voice ceased.
"I should have been as much at fault to know as you, but for a note Anna has had from Mr. Copp, giving a little explanation. Mr. Thornycroft is the great man of Coastdown, it seems; a county magistrate, very influential, and very rich. Mrs. Copp thinks he would pay quite two hundred a year with his daughter."
"And Mrs. Copp--who is she?" repeated Mr. Lake. "And where in the name of geography is Coastdown?"
"We shall never get on if you bother like this," returned Mrs. Chester, irascibly. "Mrs. Copp and Anna's mother were related, and Coastdown is a little place on the sea, about two-and-twenty miles from here. Only fancy--only think--two hundred a year with the first pupil! If I only got three others at the same terms there'd be eight hundred a year at once--a thousand with my own income. It would be quite delightful."
"But that's reckoning your chickens before they are hatched."
"I might have known that you'd throw some mocking slight upon it," was the angry retort.
"No mocking slight at all, Penelope. I do not mean it as such. Of course, if you could get four or six pupils at two hundred a year each, it would be a jolly good thing. Only--I fancy pupils on those terms are not so readily picked up."
"One, at any rate, seems ready to drop into my hands. Should Miss Thornycroft not be placed with me after this, I shall look upon life as very hard."
"Can't you take her, should they offer her to you, and trust to good luck for finding others?"