She engaged the comely comfortable woman to stay and minister further to her.
"Pour out my tea for me, Mary, please," she said, "if you're not busy.
But isn't this your afternoon off, by rights ?" And Mary, while serving her, acknowledged that not only was it "by rights" her "afternoon off;" but that Mr.Patch, the coachman, had volunteered to drive her into Marychurch to see her parents when he exercised the carriage horses.

But, while thanking him very kindly, she had refused.

Was it likely, she said, she would leave the house with Sir Charles and Mr.Hordle away, and Miss Bilson taking herself off to visit friends, too?
From which Damaris gathered that, in the opinion of the servants' hall, Theresa's offence was rank, it stank to heaven.

She therefore, being covetous of continued contentment, turned the conversation to less controversial subjects; and, after passing notice of the fair weather, the brightness of the geraniums and kindred trivialities, successfully incited Mary to talk of Brockhurst, Sir Richard Calmady's famous place in the north of the county, where--prior to his retirement to his native town of Marychurch, upon a generous pension--her father, Lomas Fisher, had for many years occupied the post of second gardener.

Here was material for story-telling to the child Damaris' heart's content! For Brockhurst is rich in strange records of wealth, calamity, heroism, and sport, the inherent romance of which Mary's artless narrative was calculated to enhance rather than dissipate.
So young mistress listened and maid recounted, until, the former fortified by cakes and tea, the two sauntered, side by side--a tall stalwart black figure, white capped and aproned and an equally tall but slender pale pink one--down across the lawn to the battery where the small obsolete cannon so boldly defied danger of piracy or invasion by sea.
The sun, a crimson disc, enormous in the earth-mist, sank slowly, south of west, behind the dark mass of Stone Horse Head.