I
So far I have been very full, I know, and verisimilitude has been my
watchword rather than the true affidavit style. But if I have made it
clear to the reader just how the Sea Lady landed and just how it was
possible for her to land and become a member of human society without
any considerable excitement on the part of that society, such poor pains
as I have taken to tint and shadow and embellish the facts at my
disposal will not have been taken in vain. She positively and quietly
settled down with the Buntings. Within a fortnight she had really
settled down so thoroughly that, save for her exceptional beauty and
charm and the occasional faint touches of something a little indefinable
in her smile, she had become a quite passable and credible human being.
She was a cripple, indeed, and her lower limb was most pathetically
swathed and put in a sort of case, but it was quite generally
understood--I am afraid at Mrs. Bunting's initiative--that presently
_they_--Mrs. Bunting said "they," which was certainly almost as far or
even a little farther than legitimate prevarication may go--would be as
well as ever.
[Illustration: She positively and quietly settled down with the
Buntings.]
"Of course," said Mrs. Bunting, "she will never be able to _bicycle_
again----"
That was the sort of glamour she threw about it.