“But I have no cares,” said Ellett.
“Then,” cried Miss Lyndsay, “we will all dine with you, and you shall do all the talking.”
“That would suit my sister admirably,” laughed her brother. “Did you ever notice how silent many of these woodmen are?”
“Yes,” said Carington, “that is true. The woodland life has the same effect upon me.”
“That’s curious,” remarked Miss Lyndsay. “Certain people blast me with utter dumbness. It might be useful if it were kept up long enough to form a habit. I mention that to anticipate my brother. One does sometimes say what one doesn’t want to say—but, oh, I do think one much more often wants dreadfully to say what one had better not say.”
“I think that is true,” said Mrs. Lyndsay, with reminiscent gravity.
“Which? or both?” said Anne, in an aside.
“By the way,” said Lyndsay, “talking of these unlucky relics of the royalists, and, in fact, of too many on these coasts, the most energetic of us would succumb to their environment.”
“Yes; there is that poor devil, Colkett,” said Carington, “a good hunter, a hard worker—I am told, a first-rate lumberman—and yet always in want.”
“To judge from my daughter’s account,” said Mrs. Lyndsay, “the wife is his difficulty.”