IT was more than a week since Tommy’s Ladies had come to Draeth. Easter was over, and until Whitsuntide no more steamer-loads of Plymouth trippers would visit the little town. On landing the steamer passengers invariably followed the same plan. Presumably during the short voyage they had had enough of the sea, for on leaving the boat they at once trailed up the main street of Draeth, either in scattering groups or in twos. The groups included children: little girls with tightly curled hair and little boys in velvet suits. Sometimes the twos held each other’s hands, spoke little and looked down at the ground as they walked; sometimes they were parted by the whole width of the roadway, each seemingly indifferent to the presence of the other.

The groups looked in at the shop-windows until they were hungry; then, carrying bulging paper-bags, they retraced their steps and, sitting in sheltered corners among the rocks, looking out beyond the island to the open sea, they ate stolidly until the bags were empty. Later the tide came up and restored the beach to order, carrying out, even beyond the breakwater of the island, all the litter of paper bags, banana skins, orange peel, glass and tin—all mercifully washed outwards to the horizon until they became waterlogged and sank to the ocean floor.

On Easter Monday the ladies walked to a distant and secluded part of the coast and were happy all the morning in avoiding the rush of holiday-makers. From afar they watched the approach of the thronged steamers, and speculated idly as to the probable number of boatloads that would land. Because it was good for the watermen they were glad that the steamers came.

As they were leaving the house after dinner, a weary lady had approached them. Behind her stood another woman, equally weary, and a pale-faced, meek-eyed man. “Excuse me,” the first weary lady had said, addressing Miss Dorothea, “but will you be so very kind as to tell me where we can find the stocks?” she spoke with nervous eagerness. “You see, we are only here for the day.”

Miss Dorothea had directed her to the stocks just around the corner, and had followed the Blue Lady down the alley. But she was not to escape so easily. “Excuse me once more,” said the weary stranger, somewhat out of breath with running after her, “but is there anything else to be seen in Draeth; you see, we are only here for the day.”

On the following Monday, as they were walking up from the sands at dinner time, they were laughing over the Easter reminiscences, and comparing the beauty and stillness around them with the bustle and throng of the week before. Then they began to speak of Mrs. Radford. They found it very difficult to avoid her, although they had not responded to her early advances. Whenever they left the house they were conscious that her eyes followed them until they were out of sight; she stood, barely concealed by the curtains of the window, to mark their return.

The Blue Lady was growing impatient; the unceasing spying annoyed her.

The Brown Lady saw not only the humour, but also the pathos, of Mrs. Radford’s actions. “But think, Margaret,” she said; “it isn’t real ill-nature that makes her so. It’s just a sort of jealousy; we have so much, and she has so little.”

“I don’t agree with you. She has a husband and a child, and money enough to enable her to live without effort.”

“Yes, she has all that, but she lacks absolutely the joy of living. You yourself possess this in so high a degree that you scarcely allow for its absence in others.”

“Ah, well,” sighed the Blue Lady, “I really will try to be more tolerant, but the woman irritates me beyond endurance.”

She ran upstairs to the sitting-room:

“Oh the wild joys of living,” she quoted, “the leaping from rock to——”

Her good resolutions were forgotten, for there, curled up on the sofa, sat Annabel. She was not an attractive child in appearance: she was too tall for her age, and, in spite of the fact that she was five years old, she spoke in a babyish manner which sounded unnatural and was, indeed, the result of affectation.

She was the first to speak. “Miss Magalet, ’tan I have dinner wiv ’oo?”

“No, Annabel, you most certainly can not. Why don’t you speak plainly—Tommy does. And you must never again come up here when we are not in.”

“You have much nicer dinners than us,” continued the child; “me never has g’evy and meat, only beans and fings.”

“Poor mite!” said the Brown Lady below her breath.

Annabel had wriggled off the sofa and was pointing to a gay chocolate box on the mahogany wash-stand that served as a sideboard. “’S dem for Tommy?” she asked.

The Blue Lady lost patience. “They were for Tommy,” she said, quite sharply; “but I don’t think they’re very good; they don’t seem quite fresh, so you can have them if you like.”

The child, completely satisfied, went downstairs to show her mother the gift.

“It’s no good,” said the Blue Lady, ashamed of her unkindness to a little child. “She’s exactly like her mother and I cannot like her.”

For dinner the ladies had ordered ox-tail soup, lamb and green peas, gooseberry tart and cream. So much Mrs. Radford learned when she peeped in at the kitchen door as Mrs. Tregennis was dishing up the second course.

“What very extravagant dinners they order.”

Mrs. Tregennis took no notice of the remark, but, stooping, closed the oven door, and, digging a fork into the joint, lifted it from the tin to the hot dish waiting on the fender. At that moment the upstairs bell rang. Mrs. Tregennis answered it and returned with the plates and the soup-tureen.

Mrs. Radford raised the lid of the tureen. “What delicious soup!” she remarked, “and what a lot they have left. They would never miss it, Mrs. Tregennis, if you would let me have some.”

There was no reply.

“Won’t you give me just a little—just enough for Annabel?”

Then Mrs. Tregennis spoke. “I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing!” she answered, indignantly. “Why, I wouldn’t take not even so much as a crumb of theirs, not even for my own Tommy, no, not if ’twas ever so!”

Even then Mrs. Radford was not ashamed. “A few green peas——” she began again.

“Not one green pea, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Tregennis, firmly, “and you’ll excuse me for sayin’ it, ma’am, but I really cannot understand as how you can ask for any such thing; so there’s where ’tis to.”

Mrs. Radford flushed hotly. “Well! you’ll see,” she said vindictively, “they’re living at too grand a rate, they are. Their money won’t last out, it won’t. You can’t say that you were not warned.”

Passing into her own room Mrs. Radford slammed the door, while Mrs. Tregennis carried the lamb, green peas and baked potatoes upstairs to the spendthrift ladies.