o you mean? I suppose you think she had no right to try and
force herself on us, but I thought--"

"I'm not complaining of that in the least," said Meldon. "That was
quite natural, and not at all what I call unwomanly. In fact, most
women would have acted just as she did in that respect. What I was
thinking of was those famous lines of Sir Walter Scott's. You
recollect the ones I mean, I suppose?"

"No; I don't."

"'Oh woman,'" said Meldon, "'in our hours of ease'--that's now, Major,
so far as we're concerned--'uncertain, coy, and hard to please.'
That's what Miss King ought to have been, but wasn't. Nobody can say
she was coy about the lobsters. 'When pain and anguish wring the
brow.' That's the position in which Simpkins finds himself. 'A
ministering angel thou.' That's what Miss King should be if she's what
I call a true woman, a womanly woman. But she evidently isn't. She
hasn't the maternal instinct at all strongly developed. If she had,
her heart would bleed for a helpless, unprotected creature like
Simpkins, whose brow is being wrung with the most pitiable anguish."

"Do you mean to say," said the Major, "that you think she ought to take
a pleasure in holding that beast Simpkins' head?"

"That, though you put it coarsely, is exactly what I do mean. Any true
woman would. Sir Walter Scott distinctly says so."

"Considering what you believe about her--I mean all that about her and
Mrs. Lorimer being the same person, and her wanting to kill Simpkins--I
don't see how you can expect her to be what you call womanly."

"There you're wrong, Major; quite wrong, as usual. There's no reason
in the world why a woman shouldn't be womanly just because she happens
to hold rather advanced opinions on some ethical subjects. As a matter
of fact, it came out in the trial that Mrs. Lorimer was devotedly
attentive to her husband, her last husband, during his illness. She
watched him day and night, and wouldn't allow any one else to bring him
his medicine. I naturally thought she'd display the same spirit with
regard to Simpkins. I hope she will after they're married; but I'm
disappointed in her just at present."

"What are you going to do about the lobsters, J. J.?" said the Major,
dropping the subject of Miss King's character. "You know very well
that there are none on the island, and after all you said about their
swarming about in a lobster bed, Miss King will naturally expect us to
bring her back a fe