But it was the shipping about which she had sought his advice. The little white dots on blue lakes that were supposed to be feluccas or barchettas he passed; but when it came to a big sailing-boat lying on a beach, and that beach presumably Cornish, from the colour of the rocks, he made a civil and even timid remonstrance.
'I don't think I would have the mast quite in the middle of the boat, if I were you,' said he, gently.
'I thought it always was,' she said—and yet if she had gone to the window she might have seen.
'If it is a lugger, you see,' he continued, giving her all sorts of chances of escape, 'the mast would be at the bow. And if it is a cutter, you would still have to put the mast farther forward, and give her a boom and a bowsprit. Or if it is a yawl, then you would have a little jigger-mast astern—about there——'
'Oh, I can't be expected to know things like that,' she said.
'Scientific accuracy isn't wanted. They're only sketches.'
'Yes; oh yes,' he said.
'Won't that boat do?' she demanded.
'Oh yes, it will do,' he said, fearful of offending her. 'It isn't exactly where they put masts, you know; but then few people know about boats or care about them.'
She was not very well pleased; but she continued to show him more sketches, until Mr. Tom came up to see when they were coming to billiards.
'I shouldn't have shown you these at all,' she said, 'I don't take interest in them myself. I would far rather draw and paint flowers; but we never have any flowers now except those waxen-looking heaths and that flaming pointsettia over there.'