"But it's so far away, Ninian, dear, and if anything were to happen to you!..."
"Nothing'll happen to me, mother ... nothing serious anyhow. Heaps of chaps go off to places like that without turning a hair!"
"But I've only got you, Ninian!" Mrs. Graham objected.
"You've got Mary, too, and I shall come back to you!"
One evening, as they walked along the road that leads to Sidmouth, she put her arm in his, and drew him near to her.
"Ninian, dear," she said very softly and hesitatingly as if she were afraid to say all that was in her mind.
"Yes, mother!"
"Ninian, I sometimes wish ..."
Again she hesitated, and again he said, "Yes, mother?"
Her speech took another direction. "There have been Grahams at Boveyhayne for four hundred years, dear, and there's only you left now."