'No. Not the pebbles as they are, they have to be polished first. When we had our cottage, there was a grinding stone there, and mother turned the handle and I rubbed down the stone, and then with a little powder and some oil I got polish enough to see whether they really was good for anything.'
'Whether they _were_. Excuse me, I interrupt.'
'I thought you might be, and were turning the grinding stone on me.'
'Well, sir,' she continued, 'then I take them to Mr. Thomas Gasset, at Seaton, and he gives me a shilling for a very beautiful specimen, but generally eightpence or a groat.'
'I don't know about pocket money; it generally goes into my mouth.'
'In bread and butter. Well, sir, Mr. Gasset works the stones up into seals or brooches, or paper weights, or just as so many specimens; and these the visitors buy. And if you be going――――'
Winefred made a slight movement with her arm, as though turning a grindstone.
'If you are going to Seaton, sir, you'll find Mr. Gasset's shop on the right-hand side of the street, about a hundred paces above the Red Lion.'
He nodded. He was without his hat; now he stooped laboriously――for he was tightly strapped, and wore stays――and picked it up.
'And so――she turns the handle of the grindstone.'
'What――my mother? Yes, sir. But our cottage has fallen down, and now we have not got the grindstone where we are.'
'No, sir. I don't reckon he was a proper captain, nowhere――――'
'My dear, polish is everything――you see it in the pebbles.'
She considered a moment, then smiled: 'Yes, sir, polish is a great deal. I suppose we are all of us rolled up by the great sea of time, alike on the beach, but some are smoothed and shaped――and those are the ladies and gentlemen, and some are left in the rough, and those are such as mother and me.'
'You are a shrewd observer. Now about this grinding stone?'
'We shall move it to the captain's house. Will you come and see it on the undercliff? Mother is there.'
'I――I――no――no!' replied Mr. Holwood hastily. 'My avocations call me. I cannot to-day. On some future occasion, perhaps. Pray, how long have you been with this Captain Rattenbury?'
'Two days only,' he repeated with an air of relief. 'I was led to understand――that is to say, I understood you to have said――longer. You are there temporarily, I suppose?'