CHAPTER IX

The household was astir early the next morning to set the travellers on their road with a warm meal and a parting word; and despite the absence of Aunt Penine, all the domestic machinery moved as smoothly as usual. There could still be seen a few stars, not yet blotted out by the pearly haze, shot with palest blue, that the dawn was putting in front of them. Over the sea hung a curtain-like gathering of fog, and the air was heavy with the odors from the wood and fern, brought forth by the damp. Nicholson Broughton,…