The Vicar's People

He smiled across the table, and poor Rhoda smiled back; then her eyes dropped, and she saw her face so grotesquely reproduced in the highly-polished silver coffee-pot that she felt ready to burst into a hysterical fit of laughing; which she checked, however, as her father chatted on, and read scraps from his other letters, talking pleasantly and well, as his handsome face brightened, and the sun that shone in upon the silver and china upon the fine white damask gave a sparkle to his short, crisp grey hair, though, at the same time, it made plain the powder upon his cleanly-shaven face. He had so many pleasant things to say on that sunny, spring morning that the breakfast-table was soon as bright as the dappled opalescent sea that sparkled and flashed as it played round the rocky promontory upon which stood the ruins of Wheal Carnac Mine, or lifted the dark hulls of the fishing-luggers moored to the buoys, some of which had their dark cinnamon-hued sails hung out to dry, forming, through the heavily-curtained window, with its boxes of ferns, a charming bit of sea, like some carefully-selected specimen of the painter’s art.