'We make all we can. There are no shops, you see, on Samson. We bake our own bread: we brew our own beer: we make our own butter: we even spin our own linen.'
'And you make your own wine, Armorel.' He called her naturally by her Christian name. You could not call such a girl 'Miss Armorel' or 'Miss Rosevean.' 'It is a wonderful island!'
After supper they sat by the fireside, and, by permission, he smoked his pipe.
Then, everybody else on the island being in bed and asleep, they talked. The young man had his way. That is to say, he encouraged the girl to talk about herself. He led her on: he had a soft voice, soft eyes, and a general manner of sympathy which surprised confidence.
She began, timidly at first, to talk about herself, yet with feminine reservation. No woman will ever talk about herself in the way which delights young men. But she told him all he asked: her simple lonely life—how she arose early in the morning, how she roamed about the island and sang aloud with none to hear her but the sea-gulls and the shags.
'Do you never draw?' he asked.
She had tried to draw, but there was no one to help her.
'Do you read?'
No, she seldom read. In the best parlour there was a bookcase full of books, but she never looked at them. As for the old lady and Dorcas, they had never learned to read. She had been at school over at St. Mary's, till she was thirteen, but she hardly cared to read.
'And the newspapers—do you ever read them?'