"They stayed at the inn two or three days in May last," said Wenna innocently. "They came here by chance, and found Mrs. Trelyon from home."
Mr. Roscorla seemed startled. "Oh!" said he. "Did they—did they—ask for me?"
"Yes, I believe they did," Wenna said.
"Then you told them," said Mr. Roscorla with a pleasant smile—"you told them, of course, why you were the best person in the world to give them information about me?"
"Oh dear, no!" said Wenna, blushing hotly: "they spoke to Jennifer."
Mr. Roscorla felt himself rebuked. It was George Rosewarne's express wish that his daughters should not be approached by strangers visiting the inn as if they were officially connected with the place: Mr. Roscorla should have remembered that inquiries would be made of a servant.
But, as it happened, Sir Percy and his wife had really made the acquaintance of both Wenna and Mabyn on their chance visit to Eglosilyan; and it was of these two girls they were speaking when Mr. Roscorla was announced in Mrs. Trelyon's drawing-room the following evening. The thin, wiry, white-moustached old man, who had wonderfully bright eyes and a great vivacity of spirits for a veteran of seventy-four, was standing in front of the fire, and declaring to everybody that two such well-accomplished, smart, talkative and lady-like young women he had never met with in his life: "What did you say the name was, my dear Mrs. Trelyon? Rosewarne, eh?—Rosewarne? A good old Cornish name—as good as yours, Roscorla. So they're called Rosewarne? Gad! if her ladyship wants to appoint a successor, I'm willing to let her choice fall on one of those two girls."
Her ladyship, a dark and silent old woman of eighty, did not like, in the first place, to be called her ladyship, and did not relish, either, having her death talked of as a joke.
"Roscorla, now—Roscorla, there's a good chance for you, eh?" continued the old general. "We never could get you married, you know—wild young dog! Don't you know the girls?"
"Oh yes, Sir Percy," Mr. Roscorla said with no great good-will: then he turned to the fire and began to warm his hands.