with as little emotion as he had learned the gorse. He asked her to
unfasten the top button of her dress that he might see the lines of her
plump throat, and she complied without hesitation or ceasing from her
chatter. He noted where the tan on her neck faded to white under her dress,
and occupied himself with all the artistic problems she unconsciously
spread before him; while she merely talked, garnered in his questions and
comments on all she said, and found delight in the apparent interest and
entertainment her conversation afforded him.

"I seed a maggotty-pie [Footnote: _Maggotty-pie_--Magpie.] comin'
along this marnin'," she said. "Wan's bad an' a sign o' sorrer; but if you
spits twice over your left shoulder it doan't matter so much. But I be
better off than many maidens, 'cause I be saint-protected like."

"That's interesting, Joan."

"Faither'd be mad if I let on 'bout it to him, so I doesn't. He doan't
b'lieve much in dead saints, though Carnwall's full of 'em. Have 'e heard
tell 'bout Saint Madern?"

"Ah, the saint of the well?"

"Iss, an' the brook as runs by the Madern chapel."

"I sketched the little ruin of the baptistery some time ago."

"'Twas tho't a deal of wance, an' the holy water theer was reckoned better
for childern than any doctor's traade as ever was. My mother weer a Madern
cheel; an' 'er ordained I should be as well, an' when faither was to sea,
as fell out just 'pon the right day, mother took me up theer. That was my