Joan, a pleasant-faced young woman who had once been the children’s nurse, and was now married to a fisherman who owned several boats, and was a person of some consequence among the villagers, was standing at the door of her cottage with a baby in her arms as the children came up. Her face beamed with smiles, but before she had time to speak Ruby called out to her.
“How are you, Joan? We’ve come round to ask how baby is, but it’s very easy to see he is better, otherwise you wouldn’t be so smiling.”
“And here he is to speak for himself, Miss Ruby,” said Joan. “How very kind of you to think of him! And you too, Miss Mavis, my dear. Are you both quite well?”
“Yes, thank you, Joan,” said Mavis quietly. But Ruby was fussing about the baby, admiring him and petting him in a way that could scarcely fail to gain his mother’s heart. Joan, however, though fond of both the children, had plenty of discernment. She smiled at Ruby—“Miss Ruby has pretty ways with her, there’s no denying,” she told her husband afterwards,—but there was a very gentle tone in her voice as she turned to Mavis.
“You’ve had no more headaches, I hope, Miss Mavis? Have you been working hard at your lessons?”
“I have to work hard if I work at all, Joan,” said the little girl rather sadly.
“She’s so stupid,” said Ruby; “and she gets her head full of fancies. I daresay that prevents her having room for sensible things. Oh, by-the-bye, Joan, tell us who lives in that queer cottage all by itself some way farther along the coast. I never saw it till the other day—it’s almost hidden among the rocks. But Mavis says she once passed it with you, and you made her run by quickly. Why did you, Joan? I do so want to know.”
Joan looked rather at a loss.
“You mean old Adam’s cottage,” she said. “I really don’t know why people speak against him. He’s never done any harm, indeed, he’s a kind old man. But he’s come from a long way off, and he’s not like the other folk, and they got up a tale that there were queer sounds and sights in his cottage sometimes—singing and lights late at night, that couldn’t be canny. Some spoke of mermaids swimming down below in front of his hut and him standing talking to them quite friendly-like. But that’s a good while ago now, and I think it’s forgotten. And he goes to church regularly. You’ll always be sure of seeing him there.”
“Then why don’t people like him?” said Mavis.